


abide by the rules that bind us here

by khlassique



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Post Series AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27255997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khlassique/pseuds/khlassique
Summary: “Oh, you wish I’d not know why you wake afraid in the dark? That I'd not know all the things Hell will claim you for? Is that it, that only my pain and my sins since then would be known between us? That is not what this marriage is and you well know it!”
Relationships: Abigail Ashe/Billy Bones
Comments: 45
Kudos: 59





	1. in an infinite capsize

**Author's Note:**

> fic title from joanna newsom's divers
> 
> _and in an infinite regress  
>  tell me why is the pain of birth  
> lighter borne than the pain of death?  
> i ain't saying that i loved you first  
> but i loved you best_  
>    
> yes i know the show's been over for years but i'm rewatching, keep it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _like a bull tearing down the coast  
>  double hulls bearing double masts  
> i don’t know if you loved me most  
> but you loved me last_

There once was a house in Scotland where a former sailor lived, with a pretty flower garden in front and a vegetable garden in back, made of stone which on particularly grey winter days almost blended into the sky. The sailor was known, to those of his acquaintance, as Mr. Asherleigh. The sailor, to his wife, was Billy. 

Proper English, the wife was, even if the house was modest and their lifestyle too; Mr. Asherleigh worked as a glass merchant clerk, taciturn as he went over his accounts, but _he_ wasn’t a lofty type. Their neighbor, Mrs. MacFay, widow ruler of Stafford Street, described him to her friends as a giant of a man with a kind smile, when that smile comes. Why, just last month he repaired her front gate and accepted nothing more than thanks for the effort. And Mrs. Asherleigh, _well_ – not a bad sort, for an Englishwoman, even if she had to hire a cook for dinners. When the Missus blushed at that fact when she revealed it over tea, the Mister reminded her, with far more humor than anyone else in the country had ever heard from him at that point, that it was better than her sandy biscuits. Mrs MacFay wondered for a moment if the Mister was being purposefully cruel by bringing up some past mistake, but the couple had laughed together before Mrs. Asherleigh turned to their guest and explained, mirth catching her voice, that when they had first wed, she had sent her husband off with biscuits made of more sand than flour by way of a beginner’s mistake. 

_But where did you live that sand was such an issue!_ exclaimed Mrs. MacFay, and the couple’s face again changed, wife reaching for her husband’s clenched hand. _We tried our luck at the colonies_ , _in our separate ways,_ she said, _but we found it did not suit us_. 

_But why not return to England instead of Scotland, if you’ll excuse such impertinence,_ asked Mrs. MacFay, who felt no such hesitation about asking. 

_There was nothing left for us there_. And that was that. It was a topic on which the couple stood firmly silent, though young Ewan Gordon, the son of the tailor who lived at the end of the street, knew more than most. The Asherleigh’s cat had given birth to kittens, and Ewan snuck underneath the kitchen window to pet the cat’s soft fur as her babies wriggled in the grass. It was a warm summer day, with the window opened to let out the heat of the cooking fire, and within the house there was a clamor of raised voices that came closer and closer to the kitchen. Mr. Asherleigh stood so tall above Ewan that he did not wish for the man to yell at him if caught lingering, especially now that he and his wife besides were clearly upset about something; before he could escape his hiding place, the voices reached the kitchen, and there was no choice but to sit and listen with a sleeping kitten clasped to his chest. 

“Your ghosts are not mine, _William_ , and those that are cannot even _think_ to haunt us here!”

“Would you know, then, for sure, that if there is even a whiff of my remaining alive that Silver or Flint would not hunt me down like an animal? Do you think you’d be spared?”

“You mean that beast you created who resides across an ocean? This is not Philadelphia or Boston. Nassau’s gossip has no great hold here. I will not move just as we’ve settled. My _God_ , you hate the ghost of James Flint more than I do so that he rules your life, and _he_ made me alone in this bloody fucking world!” Something heavy slammed against wood, like a mug on a table top.

“They are men who I betrayed! They are men I have killed beside! Fuck, I wish I’d never told you about any fucking thing since Charles Town if I'd known this would be–”

“Oh, you wish I’d not know why you wake afraid in the dark? That I'd not know all the things Hell will gladly take you for? Is that it, that only my pain and my sins since then would be known between us? That is not what this marriage is and you well know it! You, who found m–”

Amongst this arguing, there had been the sound of a kettle being made; now Mrs. Asherleigh yelped and cursed as fine as any man Ewan had ever heard in his short life. 

“... only my thumb, you… idiot...” the boy heard her say, but the words were muffled so he could not hear them for certain. She said something else. “It’s the... not… I wished…”

There was silence, and Ewan thought about peeking over into the kitchen to make sure he was safe to scramble off, but then Mr. Asherleigh said, with a great urgency in his voice, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, and I will not have them looking into shadows for monsters who are not there because that is where you turn your constant gaze. Billy Bones is dead. Abigail Ashe is dead. Let them rest easy.” She sounded tired. There was no more sound but a rustling of cloth, a sigh, and one set of heavy boots leaving the kitchen, but no one was in the room when Ewan checked.

So Ewan Gordon of Stafford Street, Leith, was one of the first to know of the impending Asherleigh child. 

Pregnancy and piracy were both bloody businesses. Seven months later, Abigail Asherleigh wept from her marriage bed, which the midwife Mrs. Black was trying to keep from becoming a death bed, and Mr. Asherleigh came with heavy buckets of water, one hot and one cold, as requested. 

“Billy,” cried Abigail in a pitiful voice, as she had been crying ever since he’d left, and neither Mrs. Black nor her apprentice Fiona were about to tell the great hulking man that this was no place for him. When Mrs. Black had suggested it, at the beginning of the difficult labor, the look in his eyes was short of murderous. 

Mrs. Black had heard many secrets as women thought they were close to dying and there was no priest within calling distance, confessions of affairs or disease or rape. Transgressions both petty and grave. She was not shocked as she listened to her patient’s quiet babbling, the other woman asking her husband if this was repayment for Edward, for Carolina, the knife in the chest. There was a story here that did not seem to fit the lady's pale hands.

“It doesn't work like that, my love,” he soothed, smoothing a cold cloth across her face with a scarred hand. “It’s just a babe, not a judgment. Any of my sins would make the Devil weep, so I can tell you this is not any repayment of a debt, or I’d never have found you again. Hell would come for me first before it'd ever think to meet your eye.” 

“All I can think about is his eyes and the– the _blood_ ,” this last word broke into a high keening as Abigail’s body tried to push her child out, or keep it in, but the pain was so great she couldn’t say for certain in that moment. It was a possession. “Billy, I don’t want to die, I don’t– want to see him– or Father– please don’t let me see them.” A pause as her husband wiped the snot from her crying with a clean damp cloth until she said, in a sad childish whine, “I want my mother. I want Miranda.” Silence as her capacity for tears lessened, then soft, sweet words from the head of the bed in a masculine voice too low for Mrs. Black to make full sense of, though the Lord would have to forgive her for trying. The big man almost draped himself over his wife’s chest, weight on one arm, keeping her gaze from the bloody sheets below her waist and the exhaustion on the midwife’s face. 

“No, no, you’ll look at me… a little blood would make me run?... bastard deserved what you gave him… my love… more fierce than any captain… like the time I…” 

And on and on, for many hours in his deep voice, until finally, little Miranda Asherleigh made her wailing debut into the world. Her yells, the proud father noted during a moment of silence as the baby nursed, were rather like a battle cry.


	2. go where i would, i cannot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one would recognize her, not with her fine dress and hat, hair neatly up. Not many people who heard the gossip of the governor’s pirate loving daughter probably even knew the color of her hair. A bit of a legend, then. She liked the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: i will quickly get some of my emotions about this ship off my chest via a short fic, maybe a little extra as the mood strikes  
> me, 5k more words of this background story later that is very much abigail focused: uh well
> 
> cw: discussed rape of an enslaved woman

Two years after Charles Town, Abigail Ratliff sat on the covered porch of the home she shared with her husband and his parents, watching nothing in particular. This was the one view from the home that didn’t look out onto the plantation’s fields, and even after one and a half years of marriage, she could not suppress her nausea at the reminder of how the fine indigo cotton of her dress was made. Two and a half years ago, she would not have considered the human cost at all. 

But, of course, she merely felt _guilt_. The slaves had been evaluated like cattle and given a price, and bought for labor, and damn their humanity. To be a wife bought off her guardians because her reputation was permanently marred was not the same, and she knew it. 

Six months after the wedding, she had found out what Edward did when he did not come to their bed early in the night. He did not stir any passions in her, but she had thought him a placid man until she passed by her father in law’s study and heard his raised voice. Her husband was a father, and it was not her child. The blood drained from her face as she heard Adam Ratliff berate his son, not for raping a woman, but for getting a bastard on a slave and not waiting until after his own wife was pregnant. When Edward came through their door that night, she vomited into the chamberpot at the sight of his nonchalant expression. He did not move towards touching her, but pulled the bellrope instead. 

“Hm. A headache this evening and vomiting now. Maybe I’m quite virile enough after all. Cheer up, sweet wife, I’m fetching some water for you.” She could not, would not look at him, and she’d have gladly crawled back into the cell at the Nassau fort then bear another minute of his company. 

Yet, she bore it. She bore it for another year, fading into a version of herself that would have shamed the consequences Lady Hamilton took to deliver her to what was supposed to be safety. Ruth gave birth to a daughter, but there was no celebration in the main house for the first grandchild of the elder Mr. and Mrs. Ratliffe. There was no way for Abigail to do something for the woman without invoking what she had discovered was the formidable wrath of her father in law– and, in any case, why would Ruth trust the wife of the man who had raped her? In Abigail’s most darkest moments, she wanted Charles Vane to come back and behead Edward. Or Flint. Or any of the pirates she’d met after being saved from Ned Lowe to arrive in the night. _That_ man had been deranged. Her husband was more dangerous, with all of his evil beneath the surface.

Abigail did not get pregnant. Edward made comments on how she was frigid, and flawed, and too educated to be a proper mother. She wrote too much in her journal, she read too many of the broadsheets and newspapers, she stared into the trees too long. The skills her father had cultivated for a match of the highest quality instead made her a liability, and her borderline treasonous opinions on pirates made her potentially dangerous. She knew her letters were read before being sent out for that very reason, and the first year of her marriage was filled with speeches at dinner from her father or mother in law about the need for proper behavior in the colonies because this was how society was _built_. Without thinking, she had once snapped back that society should not be built on the labor of slaves who did not decide to come here.

Her hands should have trembled during the shouting that followed, fingers clasped around her fork and knife, but Abigail stayed very, very still. After that, her letters were delivered to her with the seal broken, as if Betty Halbert or Henrietta Churchill from school were political radicals. Edward barely spoke to her, but that did not keep him from fucking her without regard to whether she took pleasure. Radical or no, her inheritance was good English money, and any boy child would get a settlement from his deceased grandfather’s estate. That settlement would, of course, be controlled by the child’s father, but Peter Ashe had written into his will that his daughter would receive five hundred pounds at the time of her marriage. 

She had gotten some of that money throughout the first year, kept secret in a bag underneath a floorboard in her dressing room. The hiding spot pleased her with its cleverness, and she thought it was rather like a pirate would do. There wasn’t a plan for the money, yet, but surely she would know when the time came to run far, far away from this place. Philadelphia could practically be a continent away if she changed her name. Her sewing and embroidery was fine enough to work in a shop, if she could convince the head seamstress to take a chance on a girl with no references or family. If she could get all five hundred pounds promised by her father, she wouldn’t have to work, but a single woman in possession of enough fortune to spend her days in modest comfort was a suspicious woman. 

The family went into Charles Town so the men could deal with the indigo merchants and the women could spend some of the money made from that indigo on hats and gloves and frivolous things. _Frivolous and purchased with blood_ , Abigail thought as she absentmindedly ran the soft leather of a glove between her fingers. _My whole life has been, I suppose._ Enough time had passed that being in town did not make her smell gunpowder and hear screaming, but it certainly made her exceptionally morose.

With a murmured excuse of nausea to her mother in law and the shopkeeper– how delicate they must think her constitution!– Abigail stepped onto the street, squinting into the sunlight and meaning only to walk around the block of buildings. Once her feet began to move, however, she found herself drawn to the square where criminals were hanged. There were no bodies on the gallows, and no evidence that two years ago there had been nothing short of an invasion. No evidence her traitorous words had been read here. Nothing happened as she stopped to look; it was simply an open space in a town.

No one would recognize her, not with her fine dress and hat, hair neatly up. Not many people who heard the gossip of the governor’s pirate loving daughter probably even knew the color of her hair. A bit of a legend, then. She liked the sound of that. It reminded her of Flint and his murderous reputation hiding a care she’d not felt since. 

_Oh, do you not know me then?_ She imagined herself saying in the middle of a large party, having arrived late enough to draw attention to her coming into the room, laughing as she sipped from a glass of champagne. _I’m Abigail Ashe, who survived three dread pirate captains with her virtue still intact!_

Not that she would have minded disembarking in Charles Town that first time having had her virtue thoroughly ruined by one handsome crew member in particular. At first, when Edward came to her bed, she had imagined Billy’s face instead to make it easier, but then she realized doing so simply made her sad. The Billy Bones she had dreamt of, even as she’d known him, had been a fantasy, and he did not deserve to be used like that. A smaller part of her hoped anyone he shared his bed with was not as disappointed as she; any pleasure Abigail took was by her own hand, alone. Sex with Edward was not always a reciprocal experience, and when she did come to completion with him, it was an unexpected side effect of his own selfish efforts. Friends who had left school and married before Abigail had shared what the marriage bed was like, so she was not surprised by the passivity of her husband’s physical or emotional affections. Billy had been so gentle to her in a time of great cruelty that she couldn’t imagine he was anything less than the same unclothed. _Oh, shame, lusting after a ghost_.

Except, by the great laughing mockery of fate, the ghost she had been thinking of while standing where her father was murdered walked across the square. Towards her.

She sucked in a breath through her nose, the sudden rush making her light headed. It couldn’t be. It had to be. She had never met another man who was as tall as him with the same walk, no matter the beard and longer hair– but he was a _pirate_! In Charles Town! Was he actually mad! He did not seem to be looking at her, but after a moment’s hesitation she clenched her hands into fists and then said as he walked past, all striding confidence, “Excuse me, sir–”

But he didn’t hear her _or_ stop, so Abigail was forced to reach out a gloved hand and touch his arm. Odd, how even through at least three layers of material, one of which was a leather coat, she thought she felt the flinch of his muscle. It was not a thing a lady would do, touching a man like that, but he was not a gentleman. 

“Sir!” The word came out desperate. What if he didn’t stop? What if he didn’t recognize her? 

That got his attention, and she took a quick step back to look him in the face from under her hat. Horrid, impractical thing. He narrowed his eyes at her, clearly trying to place why this put together women sought a conversation. It made her speech sound like she had been mute for months.

“I think we have a common acquaintance, sir. Mister, er, Bones. If I am not mistaken. If we could not speak in the middle of this square…?” 

“Miss Ashe? Weren’t you supposed to leave here?”

“Oh!” She smiled at him, if the slight upward turn of her mouth could be considered a smile. It had been a very long time since one had been genuine. “I was waylaid. By marriage.” Her wedding ring burned on her finger. She wanted to rip it off and throw it onto the cobblestones. She wanted to throw herself into this man’s arms and weep for finding someone who would not judge her for wanting to get onto a ship and leave.

“My congratulations, ma’am… I have a short time here before my ship leaves–” Oh God, he was turning to walk away from her. His gaze was not cold, but it was alien, and she felt hysteria like a physical thing puppeting her body.

“Mr. Bo– please! No, I–” She thought quickly on how best to get him to stay speaking with her. What she said next was not any of those more potentially eloquent sentences. “Please do not congratulate me. It is not that kind of marriage. Your ship. Would it take a woman? If she could pay? Or do work?” She blinked, voice high. “Where is it even going?” 

Did it matter? No, as long as the destination was away. Her head wanted to float away from her shallow breaths, arm reaching out in desperation to keep him from leaving. Here was a chance to escape, and she had to follow through despite her trembling. But he did stop leaving, and did turn towards her, and met her eye with a gentler gaze that she could recognize. 

“Philadelphia. What is your married name, then?”

“Ratliff. Abigail Ratliff.” By God, did it sting her to say it aloud. And him, too, from the way his mouth firmed. “I would go to Philadelphia. _Please_. Mr. Bones, I know we were only briefly acquainted but you are the best chance I have. For the sake of Captain Flint, and your kindness once upon a time. I can pay.” The last sentence added pitifully. She would give him all her dowry if he asked.

“Mi– Mrs. Ratliffe… do you think I would not remember how you came here?” 

“It has been years. I merely need a helping hand, as there are none around me now. I could forgive you for being busy enough to forget, I think. The papers give proof enough you are forgivable.” Abigail laughed at that, as if the burning of the coastal towns and the upheaval of Nassau was such small gossip. But the burning was because of her, because she was important enough to take hostage, to pass from man to man to man, until her arrival caused a woman to be murdered and a pirate to stand trial for crimes she now considered justified. That pirate left her orphaned, stranded in a foreign land, until her reluctant guardians could pass her easily to someone her father would have barely considered had he lived. She should have been angry at someone other than herself more times than not. Her fury with the whole lot was now, she saw. She could _never_ go back to not knowing the way the world worked outside of the life she was supposed to have had, and that fury walked a fine line between wishing for ignorance and gratitude. Unless she left this marriage, she would never be able to do anything with it.

Billy looked at her, truly _looked_ , and Abigail would vomit at his feet if he dismissed her. She could escape herself, but the accompaniment of a man was less suspicious, and she wished to evaporate from this place. She still thought him the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Fool woman, to idealize the image of a ghost and realize she wanted him even in the flesh.

And once he’d looked his fill, considering, he asked, in a low serious voice, “Could you leave by tomorrow night?”

“Of course.” Maybe she would vomit on his boots from relief instead. All she wanted to take was enough to fit into a bag. A journal, some changes of clothes, her coins. The locket with her mother’s portrait, but she wore that always. Yet she couldn’t help but ask, “Why? So quickly you agreed.”

“Do you think I would not remember how you came here?” This question from him, this statement repeated, as if she should immediately know the significance. Then the clanging of the bell tower marking the hour, which startled her into awareness. Her mother in law would be waiting, and think worse of her for her absence, as if there was any lower she could sink. In the void left by the echoing bells, Abigail grabbed one of his hands in both her own. 

“My mother in law, she… that is… I have to go now, but tomorrow night, I will meet you outside the big house. The direction is easy enough to get from the grocer and no one looks to the tree line on the north side. Oh– you pirate,” those words she whispered, “–honorable man, I will make it worth your while. I will explain why you take this risk, I promise. A candle in my window.” Cheeks on fire, she lifted his closed fist to her lips, nodded briskly to hold back tears, then lifted her skirts and hurried back to the illusory safety of the shops.

The next day, Abigail dismissed her maid, pleading illness so she could stare into her wardrobe and choose which dresses would make the journey with her. What had she truly missed during the weeks of her captivity, she asked herself, and then added an extra chemise to the bag. It rolled up small enough. 

So, the contents of Abigail Ratliffe’s life were reduced to: two chemises, a pair of stockings, two dresses of middling quality, her small journal, a sewing kit, a writing kit, a bottle of scent, tooth powder, a pearl necklace and its matching earrings, a gold necklace set with jewels, a kerchief, a pair of leather gloves, and a bag containing a mix of paper and coin equaling one hundred and two pounds, three shilling. She wore one chemise, one set of stays, her petticoats, thick woolen stockings, her pockets, sturdy boots, one locket, one kerchief she’d embroidered herself, and a warm cape. So little was missing from her room that it would look like she had simply… disappeared. The Ratliffe’s had her money, why should they wish for her any more? There was always another woman who could bear a child and bring Good Society to this place.

The money she had left as the last thing to retrieve from its hiding spot once the sun set; there was a knife she kept to pry up the board, and instead of putting it back into its drawer, she stared at it in her hand before sliding it into the pocket tucked between her skirt and petticoat.

She lit the candle and set it in the window, having pulled a chair close so she could pretend to be reading if anyone came to check on her. No one did, and when the great hall clock struck ten, Abigail began to stare out the window, book forgotten. She folded her arms on the wide wood sill, nestling the lower half of her face so that only her nose and forehead were reflected in the glass, looking for anything to indicate Billy had actually come. When she saw someone unfold themselves from the shadows of the tree line, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

He had come, as he’d promised. Now she had to get out of the house without detection and she would fulfill her side of this mad bargain. Billy looked up towards her window and gave a nod at the hand she had pressed to the glass as a signal that she would be coming down, or she hoped he would know that was it. Boots in one hand, bag over her shoulder, Abigail snuffed the half-burnt candle and slowly opened her bedroom door, sneaking into the hall and down the stairs, breath held as each footstep threatened to somehow wake the entire family even though she knew Edward, at least, slept deeply. 

Once on the porch she stopped on the bottom stair, setting down her boots and hoping she could step into them in the dark. They were, her mother in law said, horrifyingly common in style, but Abigail had bought them anyway, wearing them to ride for visits with the pastor’s wife. Now she set down her bag gently and looked up at Billy’s face, motioning to the boots. He nodded, and she set about putting them on. Thankfully she did not fall over in front of him, but he did hold out his arm for her to use as balance at one point. The night air made the leather of his jacket cool to the touch, and her fingers tightened in a gesture of– silent gratitude? Awareness? Neither had spoken yet, but then he turned his head to her and said, quietly, “You will have to ride behind me, but my horse is back in the woods. Is this all you bring?”

She nodded, and he picked the bag up as if it were empty. To him, it probably felt so. Wrapping her cloak tight to her body, she made to follow him, elated that she had done it, acting more like the Abigail that Captain Flint had once seen in her–

“Hey now, _wife_ , I’d say you’re feeling better then.” Edward sighed behind her. “I did tell my parents I was hopeful that you had finally gotten pregnant, but I suppose I would have to question its parentage.” He was drunk, she saw in the sway of his body as she turned, but she still had hope to reason with him.

“Please just let me leave, Edward,” she asked in a low tone, Billy’s heat at her back. “Neither of us are happy, you know that.”

“There is annual income from the farm in Surrey and the thousand pounds on the birth of a boy… those two things make me happy with you. Can’t let you go off with your… how’d you trick him into thinking you’re not frigid, Abigail?” He laughed, staggering a little. “Come on then, dear, let us get you back inside and you–” Edward gestured at Billy. “–go back to whatever swamp my wife summoned you from.” 

She stepped forward. “No, Edward. I’m leaving, and you cannot follow. You have taken all of the money from my family that you will ever get.” _My dead family_ , she thought, angry again at her father and his selfish ambition. It made her tremble at finally saying these things. “I know about Ruth, I’ve _known_ about Ruth, and I am disgusted with you. I am disgusted at this place. Rot in hell, you and your father both.”

Satisfied at that being the last thing ever said between her and Edward Ratliffe, she began to turn back to the trees, to Billy, but her husband lurched forward and wrenched her back to him. He was being denied for the first time in his life and it frightened her. In the darkness, there was no way to see the expression in his eyes. The weight in her pocket jostled against her hip. “Listen here, you _cunt_ , you can’t even give me an _heir_ before running off to be a ship’s whore again. Get back in the fucking house–” 

It had recently rained, and the ground was slick enough that when Abigail tried to free herself while he spoke and he pulled back, they both fell. She was on top, but then Edward flipped her over to better drag her upwards, and her hand was shaking as it ran down her side to find the slit in the skirt, she was on a ship again and Ned Lowe was smiling in a way that terrified her as her hand found purchase on the knife’s handle and she stabbed her husband whom she had promised in front of God to obey, but what did God know about anything?

Men, especially drunk men, bled a great amount, but Abigail kept stabbing and stabbing and stabbing at ghosts of men long dead, except this was a warm body, and she did this until Edward, still, was lifted off of her.

“Miss Ashe.” Billy knelt over her as she lay on the ground, clasping the knife in a bloodied hand in the pose of an effigy as a dead body cooled beside her. “We need to get you away.” 

She nodded numbly, pushing herself to a sitting position. “I’m afraid–” But there he was, lifting her up in his arms and carrying her and her bag into the treeline, all while she tried to get her fingers to loosen on the knife’s handle. She didn’t manage it until he set her down in the dark cool woods, the air heavy with the scent of pine needles and decaying leaves, and walked back out towards the house again. The knife thudded dully on the ground, and Abigail felt the stickiness of so much drying blood somewhere that was not between her thighs for the first time. How did anyone stand it? How could she– gathering a handful of detritus, which still held onto some of the damp, she scrubbed it all over her hands and thought she could feel some of the blood wash off.

_Better mud than blood_ , she thought. Ridiculous phrase. 

After a few minutes that felt like hours, Billy came back, this time with Edward’s body. He dumped it unceremoniously to the ground and kicked leaves over top before turning to Abigail, gesturing further into the trees. “Come.”

Once they were both on the horse, her bag secured behind and Abigail herself secured before Billy and they began the ride back into town, he spoke again, an arm wrapped around her waist to keep her upright. “This is a merchant crew I’m with temporarily. I’ve told them I’ve been looking for my wife after I was stranded on an island and found her again. We’ve both wanted to settle in Philadelphia. They’ve made a small room ready for both of us and I’ll leave the crew when we dock. ”

“I only asked you to get me on to your ship, not to–” 

“You just killed the only son of a family who will find his body very easily once they figure out you and he are not returning home. The last time I was part of a crew which delivered you to supposed safety, events led… to dark places. For both of us, I realize now. No, Miss Ashe, I insist on staying with you.”

“I don’t suppose I have much of a choice, since this madcap plan of mine has me at your mercy by my own request.”

“Not really much of a choice, no. Bloody stupid of you, putting yourself in a pirate’s company again.”

“But you said you were with a merchant crew.” 

“It is a story too long to tell on this ride, but you’ll hear it one day, I promise.” Billy’s arm tightened around her waist. “Oh, I should tell you also, I go by George Stevenson on this ship. You’re on the manifest as Mrs. Stevenson.”

“I’m sorry for this. For making you carry his body.” 

“Not the first time I’d done so. Rest easy, Mrs. Stevenson. I would not have done this if I’d not wished to.”

The clock had struck twelve by the time Billy had returned the horse to the inn he’d rented it from and they went to the docks. Abigail kept her hood up and cloak wrapped tight around her, but nothing in the dark alleys was going to attack a man like Billy Bones, even if he no longer claimed to be a pirate. His warmth and the rocking motion of the horse’s walk had made her sleepy, and she blinked up at the modest merchant vessel when his hand came to rest on her own tucked into his bent arm.

“This is it,” Billy said softly, before shouting up at the night watch for permission to board. They made it most of the way up the gangway when a short, reedy man appeared with his lantern.

“Oy, Stevenson! That’s the missus, then! Fetched her from fucking God’s own garden then, did you, for all the time it took? Pardon the language, ma’am. Johnny Smith, at your service.” The change in tone made Abigail smile, and she gave a shallow curtsy as best she could with her right arm caught up in Billy’s. 

“A pleasure, Mr. Smith.” Her tone was soft but genuine. Mr. Smith didn’t know a damn thing about her except that she was married to Billy, who squeezed the hand on his arm and made excuses for getting her to their cabin. 

Cabin was a generous word for the small room, but the door closed, and there was a bucket for washing. Billy left her to change and wash her hands; she saw him take the bucket of dirty water through half-closed eyes after she had crawled under the covers of the bed. The sheets were clearly patched and smelled as if they’d been stored for too long, but Abigail thought it the most luxurious place she’d slept in a good long while because she was free of her marriage, and Billy Bones insisted on accompanying her.

Abigail Ratliffe was dead, and maybe even Abigail Ashe, too. Long live Mrs. Stevenson, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading and there will probably be more of this but again no promises etc etc etc


	3. the weighed and measured heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Which is to say, I… I thank you. For what you have done and what you might have yet to do, for making sure I am not alone for now. I cannot say I am sorry, even if that makes me unforgivably selfish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have put on my big clown shoes and red nose and accepted i am seeing this fic through to some sort of natural conclusion

The captain invited her to dine at his table at dinner the next night, so he could meet the wife who would tempt such a talented sailor from their ship. His name was Benedict Sharpwaite, a man rounded with the softness of a kind older age. Abigail liked his rumbling laugh, and how he did not press on how she came to be in Charles Town with her husband working on a ship which ran from the Caribbean to Boston. It was a question she could not properly answer herself at that time, but she had woken alone in her bed that morning, Billy sleeping sitting up against the door, long legs crossed in front of him. He seemed fully relaxed, but when she pushed herself up on one arm, his eyes opened to slits at the rustle of the bed linens. 

“Oh. Good morning.” She felt very young and unsure in the light that found its way through the porthole, turning her face to look and squinting. “If it is morning.”

“Almost. Just called the noon hour.”

“Oh!” Facing him again, she blinked. “Have you… have you been there the whole time then?” 

“Aye.” Billy’s hand came up and rubbed along his jaw.

“You didn’t have to. I know you have a job. There’s no need to wait on me. Especially on the floor like that.”

“Slept worse places, to be honest. And the captain surprised me by switching my shift with another man for the day. ‘Spend some time with the wife’ and all that.” 

Spend some ti– _oh_. Abigail blushed, remembering she was only in a chemise with her hair down and braided, as if he had not seen her covered in blood last night and they had not slept in the same room. She gathered the sheet around her self-consciously and sat up fully. Had she, oh god, she’d slept so deeply that she’d drooled in the night. The side of Billy’s mouth came up as she reached out of her temporary cover to wipe her face with the back of her hand. No doubt he’d seen worse.

“Well, you’re certainly not obligated to do _that_.”

The half-smile stayed as he shook his head. “Don’t fancy a knife to the side like your last husband.” In the silence that followed, his face turned serious as he shifted position. “Mrs. Stevenson, I promise you that while you remain in my company, your body will be your own.”

“Thank you.” The movement of his legs could tempt a saint; she swallowed back what would most certainly be a hysterical giggle because what kind of woman would kill a man and then desire another in so short a time? “And call me Abigail, please. I think we are well past formalities now.”

“If you insist.” With that, Billy stood, looming in the small space. “I’ll leave you to get dressed then and bring back some food. I assume you’re hungry? Yes? Well. About ten minutes, then. Abigail.” 

She scrambled into her stays and petticoat and dress and stockings and boots, looking out the porthole and the blue expanse of ocean when there was a knock on the door, which she slowly opened to see Billy holding two bowls.

“It’s not much,” he explained as he handed one over to her, “but the cook is good and the bread is from the baker in town, so it’s only a day old now.” 

With a murmur of thanks, she sat on the edge of the bed, back straight, and began to eat what she found out was a meat stew. It _was_ good, and when she realized she could not tear off bite sized pieces of the bread because there was no place to set the bowl, she raised it to her mouth and, for the first time in her life that she could remember, Abigail bit directly into a loaf of bread. There was a pleasure in the act, which more than running away set her apart from her former life. Her school in England had been strict on proper deportment as befitting young women destined to marry well, and during her time on the Good Fortune she had eaten away from the crew. Then she had been in a cell, or around Miranda, and she had only glanced curiously at the way the men on Captain Flint’s crew had bent over their meals. But Billy had been a member of that crew, and no matter how much more refined he had seemed, he had still been a pirate. 

When she looked up at him while chewing, her gaze caught his, and both looked away quickly before Abigail peeked again. He leaned his back against a wall, legs crossed at the ankles, shoulders slightly hunched over as he ate. 

“I should tell you how I came to ask for your help,” she said once she’d finished her meal, cradling the bowl in both her hands and looking down into the dregs of the stew. Her back remained upright. “It is only right, and I only hope to tell the truth as best I can without the bias of one who’s lived it.”

“All right, then. I’ve got the afternoon.” He did not sound overly curious, which gave her a small comfort. She’d had enough of bald curiosity at her supposedly sordid past.

“Where to start– when I was taken off your ship by the Charles Town men, they tried to arrest Captain Flint and beat him in the street in front of me, and stopped only because I threatened to tell my father. So they delivered us to my father’s house, and it was so odd, to see him so much older, but that’s not really relevant, is it…” She told Billy about the dinner, though she was sure he already knew those things from Captain Flint, but she wanted him to know that she had seen Miranda’s body, that _she_ _knew_. She told Billy about her father sending her off to the home of his friends, but the carriage had broken a wheel and therefore she had heard the firing of the cannons from a mile away and seen bloodied people fleeing the chaos. The worst part of this seemed to be her selfish thoughts that this would not have happened if her father’s man had not murdered Lady Hamilton or if her father had not been fueled by what she understood now were selfish reasons. Peter Ashe had said they would discuss Abigail’s harsh judgment of him and the pirate situation after the trial was over, and now that her father was dead, she carried that lingering resentment close to her heart. Her father had died having read her journal and she wondered if he had died unnerved by or furious at his daughter’s betrayal. She still loved him, the man he had been, which made the resentment a heavier weight. 

She did not say these things to Billy, of course, because that was not her purpose in telling this story. Instead, there was her eventual arrival at her Mr. Ashford’s house, where her stay extended indefinitely in a manner that was not expected nor necessarily welcome. Mr. and Mrs. Ashford seemed to expect Abigail to stand on the table and demand the dissolution of law in the colonies. When that did not happen, and Mrs. Ashford quietly spread the details of her ward’s settlement after Lord Ashe’s copy of his will had been discovered, Mr. Adam Ratliffe had come to visit with his son Edward on what was originally supposed to have been business. A whole different sort of business ensued– that of wooing the shamed heiress. It was not subtle in the least, but Edward did not hint at her journal, and he was attentive to her needs, taking her riding and gifting her a book of poetry. Abigail figured that if she was being pushed to make a marriage, it could be reasonably made with someone who had talked of wishing to go back to England one day and was less overtly desperate than the other men who had come to dinner. When Edward offered for her, she accepted, much to the Ashford’s relief and the Ratliffe’s cheer. 

Throughout all of this, there had been stories in the papers of how Captain Flint and his crew were making good on Flint’s promise to be a monster. Nobody spoke of it around Abigail, in case she said she agreed with the pirate captain’s rampaging. It was as if, Abigail told Billy, she were both too delicate and too volatile to provoke with talk of politics. She did not attempt to speak up, afraid of being sent back to London alone in retaliation. Eleanor Guthrie’s trial would surely turn more attention to anyone with an attachment to piracy, and as strong as some of her friendships were, what good would harboring the now notorious Abigail Ashe do to a man’s political career? If her father, who had preached truth as the path to the ideal, could act as he had without any remorse, there was no predicting the actions of other men in their search for power.

So Abigail Ashe had married Edward Ratliffe and they returned to the family’s plantation outside of Charles Town. When the carriage rolled past large fields in which Black men and women worked, Abigail had leaned forward to see if she was mistaken. Edward took this as a signal of her interest in the holdings of the family, which he proudly told her included forty men and fifteen women. 

“This did not sit right with me. Not after meeting your crew. Captain Flint told me once about taking a slave ship because I asked him one night how most men become pirates. I was curious, and the answer to that curiosity left me ultimately dissatisfied with the life I had willingly chosen with Edward. I thought I would be able to accept that the enslavement of men and women was the way life had to be amongst English society. It was easy enough to ignore at the Ashford’s, since I could imagine they were singular servants, but to witness the conditions of a plantation? To know they were not here by the same choice my father or I or any other Englishman had made? And the way–” Abigail breathed deeply to control the tremor of her voice as she spoke of this. “–the way men like my husband felt the bodies of their slaves were free to treat however they pleased. So I came to understand Captain Flint and the rest of you more, choosing to not live within a society which has deemed such cruelty a requirement and enacting such violence to attempt to batter down the things upon which that society has built its success.”

She described discovering Ruth’s pregnancy and her outburst at the dinner table, and how after those two things she had gone through her days not particularly caring about what would happen after she woke up the next morning. She had known that she would leave her marriage, but it was difficult to see an easy way to accomplish that.

“Then two days ago, I recognized you walking and you know what came after that. To see a familiar face, even on such short acquaintance and not really a proper introduction, was, oh, I cannot describe it. I truly did not wish for you to feel so obligated to accompany me as you plan to do, and under the guise of my husband at that, given the way I parted from your captain, and my relation to the man who caused his suffering. That suffering, which, as I understand it, drew his crew along the path as well. Which is to say, I… I thank you. For what you have done and what you might have yet to do, for making sure I am not alone for now. I cannot say I am sorry, even if that makes me unforgivably selfish.” 

Throughout her story, she had kept her voice soft and proper, and now that she finished, she blinked back a sudden threat of tears. Not being sorry should make her feel stronger, she thought, and not so wretched. Billy had set his empty bowl down on the floor near his feet as she spoke and stayed as he had been standing, silent, arms crossed against his chest. The weight of his full attention kept her eyes off of him for the most part, instead looking down into the bowl she still held or on the wall ahead of her. She flinched when his hand appeared to take the bowl out of her grasp, but she let it go easily. After he had set that down on top of his own, he sat next to her on the edge of the bed, which suddenly felt much smaller.

“I think,” he said, quietly, “that you were forced to make many choices based upon the reading of your journal, choices that were only available to you based on the actions of those who took that journal and delivered it to your father.” 

“I had assumed Charles Vane found it within Captain Flint’s cabin and decided it would be useful. Which it was, clearly.”

Billy sighed. “And who'd have known that it was there, Abigail.”

“Someone on the cr–” She barely turned to her head to look at him. Now it was he who wouldn’t meet her eye. Somehow she sat up straighter. “I see. Did you read it all?”

“Enough to know Flint told you about me– thank you for not using my name, by the by– and that you spoke with sympathy about us pirates. You need to know my role in all that’s happened to you. Wouldn’t be right to keep it secret.”

She thought a moment, fingers laced in her lap. “Do you consider helping me penance, then, for helping deliver me to my father which led to the trial, which led to your handing over my thoughts to be consumed by society but also allowed your captain to be rescued at the cost of human lives, and so on and so forth?”

“No. And I’m not sorry for handing over the journal either. The crew and I would have been murdered by Vane’s men. It was only your words that enabled the delay at the trial for Vane to position his men, and for my own crew to defeat his leftovers on our own ship. From what you’ve told me, I assume you don’t regret what you wrote.”

“I don’t. And I do not blame you for looking after the men in your care. If I had such people, I hope I would not hesitate to do what it would take to secure their safety. I would have been sent away regardless of the journal, and maybe I would have married Edward because he would still have convinced me enough that marriage was an acceptable way to escape a house where I was not wanted. I would still _think_ what I had written, and would still have felt trapped and disgusted living in close proximity to such human misery on that plantation.” She shrugged one shoulder. “As long as you do not help me out of pity. I do not think I could stand to be seen as an object of pity or… or duty.”

“Any duty I feel to you is that you are a woman alone in a world which left you little choice, and it's taken bravery to make the choices you did. You’ve not hardened in your ways from what’s happened and… I suppose I admire that. You seemed distraught when you stopped me, and I figure any woman who asks a strange man for something like you did is a woman who has very little options. So not pity. It’s… it’s recognition of a situation I could help fix.” Abigail glanced over at him again to see Billy’s brow furrowed. 

“But you weren’t a strange man to me. I know your name.” _And I know why you turned pirate, William Manderly._

“Too much has happened since we saw each other last.” 

“You said you would tell me that story.”

“I did, yeah.” The sound of a palm run over a beard. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Abigail turned more fully towards him, scowling. “Are you only saying that so you may keep putting it off day after day and never tell me anything at all?”

Billy let out a short laugh without smiling before standing up from the bed. “Christ, you’re going to second guess everything I say, yeah? Don’t blame you, but no, Abigail, you’ll get your story. You’ll get it.” He proffered his hand to her. “Want to come with me to return these bowls, get some tea maybe? Probably not as proper as you’re used to, but it’s five more days if the winds hold. Might as well see some more of the ship before the captain sees us for dinner.”

She stared at his hand for a moment before nodding and grasping it firmly, and he pulled her effortlessly to her feet.“Lead the way, then.” Oh god, did she sound _breathless_ ? It was such a good thing she had not written of what she had _really_ thought of Billy in her temporary journal. 

  
The crew called out merrily to Billy when he led Abigail out on his arm to the deck, looking, she thought as she squinted up at his face, a little sheepish at the attention. She squeezed her hand on him and gave him a smile that she hoped said _I don’t mind_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing a white, privileged character discussing slavery in this context, and how she came to be disgusted by the system because of her experiences, was one of the most difficult parts of writing this since i'm a white woman, and i understand that i may have fucked it up. it felt disingenuous to not address the topic.


	4. our ghosts will wander all the water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They sat there in the low light, the sound of water breaking up the side of the ship, Billy leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and Abigail in her pool of skirts and petticoats on the bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the decemberists' "the wanting comes in waves 4 (the drowned)"
> 
> _but i pulled you and i called you here  
>  (didn't i? didn't i? didn't i?)  
> and i caught you and i brought you here  
> (didn't i? didn't i? didn't i?)_

Captain Sharpwaite offered Abigail the use of his small library. He apologized at dinner about the limited selection, but he admitted he was a man given more to the comedies rather than tragedies, and enjoyed trading books with other captains as they met in ports. 

_“Oh, I think that’s one of the loveliest things I’ve heard, captain,” she had replied softly. “You all have such community.”_

_“Aye, well. We see each other often enough if we run the same shipping lanes, and when you’re away from the family so often, it does well to make sure folks know you someplace.”_

Abigail spent the following day staring at a blank page in her journal, wondering if it was possible to record her thoughts or if she even wanted to. There was no forgetting the fate of Edward Ratliffe. When that had ceased to properly occupy her mind, and printed text swam in front of her eyes, she walked the deck, careful to avoid getting in the way of the men. Billy was an easy man to find, though she did not consciously seek him out. Her time on Captain Flint’s ship made clear Billy Bones was a man whom the others orbited around like small planets. It was not that he was simply physically imposing, but the same traits which made her recognize him as a man she could have met on an English street also gave him a natural– she hesitated to call it authority, but unassuming capability. Dear god, what had happened to drive him from the solidarity of his pirate brothers and onto a law-fearing crew of merchant sailors? The anticipation of his full tale made her unsettled, and she walked a small portion of the deck with methodical intent during the afternoon, knowing it was odd to do so. But, she thought with almost deranged delight, none of these men but one would never see her after this. Mrs. Stevenson was going to depart in Philadelphia and never be heard from again. If she danced naked on the deck it would be only an odd moment to these men, but it would not follow her like the reading of her journal had. Perhaps she could blame it on being fey-wild, and then Mr. Stevenson would be the poor sailor with a mad wife. Fingers coming to cover her mouth, Abigail stopped to look over the ship’s railing. 

Who was she going to be, now that the artifice had been stripped from her life? Possibility was overwhelming. The men chanted a merry song as they worked some part of the rigging behind her, but she could still hear Billy walk up beside. Damn her and her silly calf’s love coming back to life. 

“Can’t take much time, but thought I’d ask after you.”

“As it seems what a loving husband would do?” 

“I– oh,” he said, looking down at her face. “Are you making some sort of joke, then?”

Perhaps she should have laughed or smiled as a reassurance to his questioning tone. Her hands wrapped around the sun-warmed railing, and she looked back out to the water. “I suppose so. I was thinking about the future. Please don’t concern yourself with it.”

The ship creaked, and she saw Billy’s own hands wrap around the railing, one so close to hers, and she thought the ship itself leaned a bit when he did. And perhaps feeling off-balance and already in the middle of considering madness made her say, “I’d been thinking about dancing naked on the deck, actually. Who I was could not have done so, but if no one knows my name here, there’s nothing to follow me. Does that make sense? That I have shed all expectations of myself, and my past behavior? A silly thing to ask a man like you, I suppose.” 

Someone had sanded the railing well; it slid smoothly under her palms as she worked her hands forward and back in a nervous gesture, looking over at the muscles of Billy’s forearms tightening before trailing upward to his face. His eyes had that look again, the one she hadn’t been able to recognize in Charles Town, and even the amused slant of his mouth didn’t fully clear it. They looked at each other, wind taking loose strands of Abigail’s hair and wrapping them around her throat and across her mouth. This was not like they had looked at each other in the square, for Abigail was not begging for his help, and Billy knew all that had happened to her now. 

If he was going to answer, she would never know, for someone called loudly for George, and Billy pushed back from the railing. “We’ll speak tonight, yeah.” 

Abigail nodded, turning her head to watch him stride away before he stopped and pivoted partway back on one foot. 

“You’re not actually going to–”

The question and slant-wise glance was the thing that finally made her smile faintly. If she had a fan, she would have hidden all but her eyes to show him how amused she was without an unladylike laugh. “No. I’ll be the soul of propriety.” 

That satisfied him, and he continued on his way. Surely he’d seen worse than her hypothetically dancing an unpartnered and unclothed minuet, having been a pirate in Nassau– it was not hard to understand that there had been a brothel near the tavern Eleanor Guthrie had spirited her away to, and it was not hard to imagine what happened within brothels. Well-bred women may not have spoken of such things at balls and parties, but they were not always as ignorant as men believed them to be. Women had _ears_ and _eyes_. 

Abigail watched her– she hesitated to call him husband in her own thoughts– partner in this venture walk to whoever was calling him, blushing when she realized she was, in fact, admiring him. 

-

They returned to their cabin after dinner, Abigail pleading tiredness of being in the sun all day and Billy dutifully escorting his wife to bed. Both ignored the insinuating laughs from parts of the dining area, but that was part and parcel of being around sailors. The sound made Billy’s arm tense under her hand.

She sat again on the edge of the bed as she had yesterday afternoon and blinked when Billy looked at her and said, “You need a hat.”

When she blinked again and shook her head slightly in question, he explained, “The sun can be harsh on the water if you’re not used to it. You’ve ah, burnt a bit on your nose. No, you don’t have to cover it with your hand like that–” He sighed. “Too used to no one or too many men around. Allow me to start again: I will get you a hat if you wish to stay out on the deck the rest of the voyage during the day so your face doesn’t burn. It’s unpleasant at best and has killed some men at worst.” He turned to the water pail on the small table in their room, scooping up a handful and rubbing it over his face.

Lowering her fingers from where they lightly touched the tip of her nose, she replied, “Well, yes, I’ve been sunburned before. My nurse when I was a child despaired over my freckles.”

Billy splashed his face again. “I did not refuse my water ration when we were in the doldrums.”

“What?” The word was startled out of her softly, like an exhalation. “The doldrums?”

“When you can’t get wind in the sails and you just sit. We’d just gone through a hurricane and didn’t have much fresh water or food and things… things turned then. You’d think it would have been how Flint wished for us to burn down every town with a gallows meant for pirates, but I followed him because part of me wanted to do it. Hate me for that if you will even after saying you understood yesterday, but...” He sat heavily on a stool he had taken from somewhere else on the ship, hand rubbing over his jaw in an annoyed gesture. “I’m going about telling you everything all wrong, aren’t I? Jumping into the story like that?”

She nodded, hands folded in her lap. Her face felt warm, and she supposed it was from her sunburn, or the intensity of Billy’s gaze as he looked at her while trying to collect his thoughts. Abigail did not want to be the source of his irritation, but it was hard to convince herself otherwise, that he saw her as an unfortunate burden to whom he would have to expose the truth of the past two years. The line of her mouth hardened at that thought, fingers lacing tightly.

“I suppose you can begin where I did. The moment I left the ship, if that helps you find your bearings.”

“Right.” Billy cleared his throat, settling his weight on the stool, arms crossed and then uncrossed. She wondered if he thought of her sitting as she had always been taught as a form of judgment. Was it because she was of Society, no matter how bloody her own hands now? Could he see past her gown and boots and posture schooled into her from the time she was a child, sitting on the end of a thin mattress and looking, she was sure, haughty despite how low her circumstances had fallen. But she had told him she did not mind, she had to remind herself, and bent over to pull her boots off her feet feeling as irritated with herself as Billy seemingly was. 

“Sorry, I simply–” The boots settled with a satisfying noise on the wood floor, and Abigail brought her stockinged legs under herself on the bed as quickly as possible so he could not see them. She let out a huff of breath at his surprise. “You seemed so… unwilling to begin with me sitting there all properly. And I didn’t want to wear those boots any more. It would have been rude to do it while you spoke. I interrupted your thoughts, I think.” 

She fisted her right hand in the pile of her skirts before she looked up at him, tilting her chin forward. Trying on what she hoped was an expression of preparedness. “Begin as you would. And leave out nothing. I do not wish this to be that sort of partnership.”

So Billy Bones spoke.

Several times Abigail wished to react, or ask questions, but she remained silent, watching him speak on all which he had done since she had been handed down to return to her life. To her, it was a list of sins and betrayals and blindness in the midst of what she understood as a situation which spiraled quickly into something larger than any of the pirates, and which disastrous end was inevitable. She wished she could hear this same story from Flint, or Madi, or Silver, or anyone else present at the time of its making to understand more of the truth. As Billy spoke of creating Long John Silver, Abigail realized the alien look in his eyes she had not been able to parse was, in fact, a haunting. He felt guilt only in that he could never see his former crew mates, or step foot on the island which he had spent so much of his life, again. Abigail could never return to her own life or friends, but while this had given her freedom, it was a prison for Billy. Long John Silver, his creation of retribution, was only one step behind him.

She was looking at a man who had engineered his own demise, willingly or not, and still took a risk on a woman alone in the world. No wonder he had looked at her as he had when she’d spoken of shedding her name and expectations earlier. There was no way to know the full truth of his story, but she had been honest with him. It was an act of trust to believe in what he told her now, and he had brought her this far. Trust– god above, she had trusted him with her life, surely she could put aside the cynicism born from her father and the Ratliffes and society.

Billy’s voice was hoarse and the one candle burned low in its hanging glass by the time he finished, explaining how a small merchant vessel had passed by what was called Skeleton Island six months after he had dragged himself onto shore. And for those six months after he had worked for Captain Sharpwaite, who did not wish to make himself king, or conquer an island, but was content with returning to his wife and daughters in Boston during the stormy winter months. The captain was a man without overt ambitions. That suited the quiet George Stevenson just fine. 

One of the crew’s stops was Charles Town. "Well, we both know. I thought you a ghost, or a dream of something I'd... then you asked for help.”

They sat there in the low light, the sound of water breaking up the side of the ship, Billy leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and Abigail in her pool of skirts and petticoats on the bed. 

_The Lady and the Pirate_ , an unoriginally-minded artist could title the tableau, using chiaroscuro to dramatic effect. 

“Oh, Billy,” Abigail said at last.

“Don’t,” he whispered, the word strained with the wear on his throat. “You don’t want my pity, and I don’t need yours.”

The shadows made her words braver than if they spoke in daylight. “Did I say I pitied you? I pitied you for being a boy snatched off the street and pressed into the Navy. I pitied you when Captain Flint told me you felt your father would never accept a murderer of a son back into his home or heart. But this? It is not my place to absolve. I wish someone else had been there to turn your fury so it would not consume you. Perhaps things would have been different.”

“Don’t see how.”

“I don’t, either. But they could have been, and they aren’t.” Abigail wanted to stand, place a hand on his cheek, turn his eyes towards her so he could see the truth in her face. She wanted him to know that neither of them had an identity any more, and while her freedom was to him a cage, there was comfort in doing this together. Together they would build a new life, memory by memory, and learn each other as the new creatures they were. Even if they were never married by a priest, even if Abigail’s silly feelings for him faded with time, they had each revealed their rotten core in the understanding neither would run. “You have to live with that, Billy, and I will live with you.” 

Neither of them moved until he nodded. “You will.”

“We will bear each other’s sins, then.”

“Yeah. And all the consequences.” 

The tone of Billy’s voice made it sound like a marriage vow.


	5. a dream, your doubts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Such a gaze had Billy Bones, and what steadiness his false wife met it with until he agreed! Relief replaced her fear of rejection of so simple a thing. She did not want to sleep alone, here in darkness unknown to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from pale young gentleman's "we will meet"
> 
> _oh, we will meet someday soon, it will terrify you  
>  i don't rely on things, i don't rely on things,  
> but i'm reliant on you and  
> you're reliant on me_
> 
> historian pushing-glasses-up-nose-moment: philly in this period is in a weird state of flux– the ben franklin revwar era of the city americans are familiar with didn’t come about for twenty more years, and that is also the philly i’m most familiar with. also my understanding of colonial architecture is either way earlier or new england. as such, i am, as the kids say, winging it a bit with the historical accuracy here my dudes. in my defense, black sails itself has a notable philly building from 1754 (and the current building as featured a reproduction built in 1954) featured prominently in a shot when jack is there in 1716, so. the shippen mercantile firm is a real thing, even if i moved its inception up a few years for fic purposes. this mr. shippen is the infamous peggy’s grandfather, fun fact! 
> 
> to any early colonial historians for whom these inaccuracies make you howl, i owe you a beer. i get it.

The leaves of Philadelphia were turning brilliant shades of yellow and red and orange when their ship made its slow way up the Delaware River and docked three days later. Abigail thanked Captain Sharpwaite for his kindness with a smile and nod of her head she hoped he would consider demure; she took Billy’s arm and glanced up at him before they walked down the gangplank. The Captain had recommended a rooming house where the couple could rest before finding more permanent accommodations, which was only a fifteen minute stroll from the constant movement and noise of the docks. The garbage and smells, however, remained. It was similar to London like that, even if it was still so physically contained compared to the sprawling city she had spent time in as a child. One of her earliest memories was riding in the carriage from the Ashe country estate to their London home, Abigail peering through the window hoping to catch sight of St. Paul’s dome and seeing only muddy streets; her mother would gently close the carriage curtains and have her sit properly. Now, she was free to look all she pleased, dirt previously eschewed muddying the hem of her skirts. 

Philadelphia was laid out in a grid pattern with five public squares, four placed in the corners of the city and one in the center. The streets running north to south were numbered, Sharpwaite had told her, and those streets intersecting the numbered were named after trees, in case she should ever find herself lost. Abigail hadn’t known entirely what to expect, this city which had haunted her hopes and freedoms by way of the newspapers. It was more familiar to her than Charles Town, crowded brick buildings in a colony founded on lofty Quaker ideals of equality and harmony. Of course, the original intent was always muddied in the doing, as proven by the struggles of Penn’s sons in using their power for less idealistic purposes. Such was the way of a city’s birthing pains, it seemed.  _ Neither the father nor the child are spared the other’s ambitions and rot, _ Abigail thought with a touch of bitterness. She’d known she would never escape the way men crawled up and over each other for power in the world, but the colonies manifested it so starkly. Every town was establishing itself and in doing so was struggling to meet the Crown’s laws while trying to attract trade and bodies. Oftentimes there were victims, her father one of them. 

“I can carry my own bag, if you don’t wish to,” Abigail remarked as they walked up Chestnut Street. Billy had their two bags over his opposite shoulder, and while he was so much more clearly physically competent than her, she didn’t want to be a burden. Yes, they had come to a better understanding of their partnership, but it was still a matter of pride; she had packed with the intent it would be her own shoulder bearing the weight. It had been success enough when he had handed over a torn shirt for mending during their time on the ship, his insistence that he’d been fixing his own tears for  _ quite a few years now, Abigail _ , giving way beneath the imperious arch of her brow and outstretched hand. Once the shirt was in her hand she had grinned at him, delighted at having won even the smallest of arguments. When they had turned away from each other Abigail had felt a warm ember in the center of her chest. 

Billy responded to her current query by shifting the bags with a shake of his head, guiding her gently to avoid a pig snuffling through the middle of the street. A shame she had not been able to bring her pattens with; she would not enjoy cleaning the street muck off these boots later. Her hand raised her skirts high enough that the damage to them was minimal. Another task awaited her for the first time in her privileged life– laundering her own clothes. Like any proper lady, she had fine skills on the embroidery hoop, but it had been Miranda Hamilton who had taught her how to darn a stocking ripped during captivity and hastily change the seams on a secondhand gown to make it more presentable for presentation to her father.

What would Miranda do, were she now in Philadelphia with a man she had tied her life to so suddenly? Lady Ashe had died so long ago that Abigail could not fathom how her own mother would act. The other women in her life had known their golden path was paved for them long before they realized they had the power to change it. Miranda was the only one who would be able to properly advise her, and Miranda was dead. 

The rooming house was a stone and wood building of two stories tucked beside a public square, run by a stout woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Braverman. A mezuzah hung on the right side of the doorframe. It was just the young Stevenson couple’s luck, wasn’t it, that she had a room recently left vacant and available to let. A nice view it had, too, out the front of the building, and a mattress that had been restuffed only last month. 

Abigail looked out the glass window at the distorted sheep grazing below before turning to Billy, who was unpacking his clothing into the large, heavy chest at the foot of the bed.  _ Their  _ bed. She would need to place her clothes beside his in the trunk, as her cloak and his coat now hung side by side on the pegs by the door, and their boots nestled together underneath. The tableau was strangely intimate, and both of them in their stockinged feet. She curled her covered toes against the wooden floor, free to look at Billy’s profile as he attended to his belongings before she cleared her throat. 

“I hope you aren’t expecting to sleep on the floor here.”

He started, looking up from where he knelt, and she continued, “That’s not a– an invitation for anything, I just– I would feel guilt if you did. I’m not a stranger to sleeping in a bed with someone…“  _ I don’t desire.  _ What a lie. She had once wanted him very much, but now she knew what happened in a marriage bed. His torn shirt had smelled of sweat and sea salt, and she wondered if he would smell the same if she pressed her nose to the wonderful line of his neck. At that thought she gave a harsh breath that should have been a laugh. “Please.”

Such a gaze had Billy Bones, and what steadiness his false wife met it with until he agreed! Relief replaced her fear of rejection of so simple a thing. She did not want to sleep alone, here in darkness unknown to her. They had discussed what they would do in the city; she had told him she would try her hand at being a seamstress, and he would inquire at shipping merchants. He had a fine head for numbers, even if his experience was ill-gotten. Abigail had been surprised to learn during her time with Flint the structure of a pirate crew, but Sharpewaite’s recommendation would have to go far. 

Mrs. Braverman had pointed them towards a tavern whose owners she knew and therefore could trust, and after a hearty meal, Abigail and Billy walked their new city in the fading autumn light. Much like Charles Town, Abigail felt little fear at their unplanned strolling– even if Billy was no longer a pirate, she could feel it in his stride, the way his jaw worked looking into shadows. All the things she was terrified of, and for once it was not her person around him. Her heart, maybe, but she knew she had a tendency to openness which her life had not entirely stolen away. She wanted to love him, this quiet man who guarded his self-made regrets and had attached his sacred fortune to hers. She had meant it when she said she did not pity him, but she did want more of his confidences. She wanted his trust, however cruel, plainly given. There was still too much in the silences between them, but it would take more than five days to dispel that no matter the strength of their vows made in the dark. Abigail thought on this even as she made note of a hanging sign indicating a dress shop to inquire at tomorrow. 

That night, Abigail stripped to her chemise, layering her night shirt over it behind the dressing screen, the cold air brisk against her bare skin. She would need a dressing gown of some sort before winter fully came. It wasn’t until she’d taken her hair down that she realized her brush was in the trunk, and she twisted the ribbon she used as a tie between her fingers before peeking out to check Billy was done with his washing and changing. He stood before the little washstand in his shirt and trousers and bare feet, drying off his face with a flannel. A shaving kit lay unrolled beside him, a reminder that tomorrow they would each go seek employment. When he turned at the sound of her footsteps to the trunk, Abigail was once again at a ship’s table in the dark, a shy smile on her lips. 

“You look quite different. Like I remember you.” 

“I’ve been such a stranger these past five days, then?” Billy ran a hand over the smoothness of his face, mirroring the slight tilt of her lips with his own. Abigail gathered her hair over one shoulder in a single gesture and knelt to retrieve her brush. 

“Don’t be silly. It’s just… different, that’s all.” There were two chairs in front of the fireplace, and a merry little blaze crackling away. She sat and turned her attention to her hair, settling into a slow rhythm of brushing from root to tip. It helped soothe her, this routine. She had lost her mother’s silver-backed brush when the  _ Good Fortune _ was raided, having to detangle her hair with the clumsy tool of her fingers in cabins and cells until she was given a quiet room in which to bathe. That had been the most glorious bath of her life, and it had been taken standing up in a hip bath with lukewarm water, nervously checking that the door remained closed. Both Eleanor and Miranda had stood guard, and even with those two women she had trusted in that moment with her life she had not trusted the solidity of the door.

“We’ll see if my clean face helps cover for my complete lack of…” The words trailed off.

“Lawful experience?”

He sat opposite her, crossing his legs with a certain ease of moment and resting his hands on the chair’s arms. “Blunt, aren’t you?”

Brows raised, but not looking up from her hair, she replied, “You’re the former pirate gone respectable. Can’t well walk in with a, what was it called again, cutlass strapped to your hip and threaten them for a clerkship. Or... I suppose you could offer to get rid of their competition.” 

She had not expected him to laugh. It wasn’t a full laugh, only a noise from the back of his throat, but she could recognize mirth. Hidden behind the dark mass of her brushed out hair, Abigail smiled to herself. She hadn’t been unpopular at school, and was a welcomed dinner partner once upon a time. Discovering she retained the ability to be simply  _ funny,  _ to enjoy a conversation without worry a wrong word would blacken her partner’s perception of her person was the same as finding one last chocolate in the box she’d thought empty– a delicious, expensive pleasure. 

“I’d rather be the respectable George Stevenson, settling down with his wife. Have you decided on a new name, speaking of?”

“Elizabeth.” Abigail set her brush on her lap, gathering up the topmost section of her hair to begin the braid. Arms upraised, fingers parting her hair out of habit rather than conscious thought, she looked at him. “My mother’s name.”

That confession sank him further into his chair, and his face became serious. She continued to work her hair, incorporating new pieces as the braid became longer. They watched each other, Billy looking at her hands, Abigail looking at the way his gaze turned inward. “George was my father’s name.”

“A fitting memorial we have chosen for them. Parents want their children to be happy, and what better happiness than freedom?” Taking her time to tie off her hair with a bit of pretty blue ribbon, she added, “Though I would like to still call you Billy in the privacy of our home, if you will call me Abigail.”

“Yes, I’d like that. Abigail.” His low voice, his focus sharpening back to her face, the firelight, _her_ _name in his mouth_ made a sort of madness rush through her. It was worse than too many glasses of unwatered wine, this feeling– it was knowing she was both _free to want_ and _not allowed to want him like this_ , it was _it has only been five days_ , it was hysteria and desire and her cunt ached as she sat there with a ribbon between her fingers which her dead husband whom she had _murdered_ had bought her. Neither wanted the other’s pity, but God have mercy, she undeniably wanted _him_.

“I think you’ll be wonderful tomorrow.” She had to take back control, move this moment away from something she would regret. “I know you will be. Mr. Shippen won’t know what to make of you, and be thrilled to hire you with Sharpwaite's recommendation. You’re a leader, Billy. I’ve seen it. Others will too.” 

“You’re a kind woman, with that flattery.”

“Only the truth.”

The warmth in his eyes disarmed her, the lift of his chin a hammer to the weakened door of her self-control. Now that she had accepted her childish feelings were bolstered by the needs of her adult body, she felt herself another silly planet brought into his irresistible orbit. It terrified her because she still trusted him and she did not want to suspect him of ever using her refusal to take on his guilt as an excuse for self-flagellation. He had made no action towards her that could be considered inappropriate; he did not touch her in the privacy of their rooms, and she knew even though they would sleep in the same bed he would not violate her. 

“Only the truth,” Abigail repeated as she stood, proud her legs did not shake. Her hand gripped the back of the chair, knuckles whitening with the force of her grip. “As I must also seek my own way in the morning, I will retire.” 

“Go ahead. I’ll watch the fire until it burns down some more.”

So she got into the bed, the straw-stuffed mattress crackling under her weight, the blankets a warm and comforting weight once her body heated them. From her side of the bed she could also watch the fire, feel it on her face and see her false husband’s profile in the light. She imagined him coming to bed, kissing her head before joining her, pulling her into his arms to keep her safe throughout the night. As she felt herself sliding into her own dreams, she imagined his calloused fingers brushing along her temple. If she had been more awake her face would have followed the phantom touch, but instead she breathed deep and slipped under. She would not remember in the morning.

If she had been more awake, she would have opened her eyes and seen the object of her thoughts standing above her, his hand frozen above her face and expression stricken as if he’d burnt himself on her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought of making there be more angst but god knows i will give into my horny tendencies the next chapter i write


	6. my blue blood on your hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the days shortened, Billy waited for her to walk home and accompanied her. The first time he’d done it, Abigail and Hannah had been walking out of the shop into a cold, damp night after needing to stay late to finish a project, giggling, before a large figure melted out of the shadows on the corner down the block. _Pirate_ , Abigail thought affectionately, even as Hannah cautiously paused her stride. Abigail turned back to her friend and smiled, an expression she was back to taking on more freely.
> 
> “Hannah, it’s just my husband, not some cutthroat. Come, meet him.” 
> 
> Hannah tilted her head towards Abigail’s, saying low, “I wondered why you’d give up being a fancy lady to marry him, Lizzie, but I think I understand it quite well now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i uh. had to change the rating of the fic for this chapter. also having written 20k words in less than a month feels absolutely deranged for me.
> 
> title from foals' "blue blood"
> 
> _you've got blue blood on your hands  
>  i know it's my own  
> we can go down to the streets  
> and follow the shores  
> of all the people, i hoped it'd be you_

Abigail woke facing the banked fireplace, body aching with stiffness and her mind preoccupied with the lingering confusion of half-remembered dreams. There had been a garden, a maze, a gentleman whose face she could never see, the night stars in a cloudless daytime sky, a… a cat who kept trying to trip her. With a low grumble she pressed her head further into the pillow before rolling onto her back, flinging her left arm wide in a careless gesture. When her hand hit a warm body, she startled and turned her face to see Billy blinking at the ceiling in the morning light, her fingers on his shoulder curled as if she meant to stroke his cheek. Now she knew he slept on his back, and could be woken by a touch, and that the heat of his body permeated everything even without touching his skin. She slipped out of the bed’s warm cocoon nervously, going to the fireplace to restart the fire before realizing she had very little idea on how to do so. 

The task had never been required of her, and Abigail felt a humbling sort of shame at being faced with her ignorance on household matters. Pivoting quickly on one foot, she went to splash her face with the ice cold water and use her tooth powder, resolutely not turning to look at the sound of Billy getting out of bed and stirring the fire. After rinsing and wiping her mouth ruthlessly with a bit of flannel, she went to where he stacked small sticks on the glowing embers, blowing until they flamed brighter, the wood catching. Uncomfortable standing next to him while he knelt, she sat in the same chair she had the night before.

“Can you teach me how to do that?”

Billy looked over at her, brow raised. “Build a fire?”

“Yes. I have– _had_ – servants to do it for me. The only time I dirtied my hands was if I was writing letters or painting. So nothing really useful.”

“Tonight when we’re both back, I’ll show you. That way I can cover the ash tin and all.” He added a small log to the small blaze going in the hearth. “I’d say knowing your letters is useful. And your mending is a fine sight neater than most. How well did you paint?”

“Not well enough to make a career of it, if that’s what you mean. There was one I did when I was, oh, thirteen or so of the school’s cat. He was a prodigious mouser and a great layabout when us girls gathered in a sitting room and had some sort of food with us. Great orange thing. I decided he should have a formal portrait.”

“Let me guess– it hangs with pride in the entryway to this day?”

Abigail laughed. “A closet, I think.”

“That bad, hm?”

“I’m much better at people and landscapes. Unless you prefer your cats to look like an orange fruit.”

He smiled at that. “Perhaps I do. You fancy folk don’t know–” A pause as he caught himself.

“Fancy folk don’t know what?” She leaned back in her chair, holding back the humor that wanted to shine through on her face with the set of her lips ready to betray her, trying to look lofty and lady-like with a raised brow. Her feet had to arch to accommodate her new posture, toes pointed to the floor. “Don’t know what, Mr. Bones?” 

There was a moment where she knew he was considering if she was jesting or not, and she knew how he had decided when he unfolded his body to stand and raised his own brow to answer, “Maybe we common folk like badly represented cats. You’re missing out in an audience to appreciate your work.”

“I’ll have you know I am now one of these common folk you speak of.”

“As much a common woman as a racing horse left in a farmer’s stables.” 

“Then I’ll paint a poor misshapen racehorse and title it ‘Lady Ashe’. We can hang it over the mantle so you can explain to all who visit that it’s the height of artistic progress and see how well you know taste then.” If she’d had a fan, she would have tapped him on the arm to show she was amused, to show she considered this flirting. Instead she raised her fingers to cover her lips and looked up without lifting her face. “Or I’ll paint you one day. See how well you appreciate my talent then.”

“Should I feel you’re making a threat to me?”

Her laughter spilled out. “Yes, a threat for horrible immortality on canvas.”

“I’ve never been painted before,” Billy commented, leaning one hand on the mantle, in his bed clothes and trousers, looking down on her. 

“One day,” Abigail promised before she could think on it more, her mother’s miniature in the locket at her throat. “I’ll paint you one day, Billy.”

“I’d like that.”

Maybe they should have a wedding portrait. Her parents had one, rotting in England at an estate that would eventually be sold once Abigail was considered missing so long as to be dead. Did the lower class have such things as wedding portraits? Probably not. But she could paint her husband. She had one hundred pounds still to memorialize him with if she so chose, leaning as he was in the soft early autumn light. Her heart ached when his expression warmed, as if he would be glad to be painted, because she would be glad to do it. What a privilege it would be to study his face with the excuse of a portrait, to mix the shades of yellow and blue and soft golden highlights where the sun made his eyes glow. 

Then a cloud drifted over the sun, breaking the spell. He was once again a man in his bedclothes, rumpled and human, leaning to stir the fire before padding over to pull out a serviceable dark blue suit– made, she had found out, at Sharpwaite's insistence soon after Billy had come onto the crew from his island marooning– from the trunk. 

They dressed in relative silence, Abigail lacing the front of her mantua when Billy called her name with a question in his voice. It was, she discovered, because he needed help with his neck cloth. 

“Well, Mr. Stevenson,” she said, smoothing her hands across the fabric at his shoulder before stepping back to appraise him. “Do you feel like a proper clerk now? If I may say, you do look the part.”

It was striking, the difference a suit and hair clubbed back from a clean-shaven face made. Instead of the long trousers she had seen him wear on the ship, his breeches fell only to his knees, tied to prevent his stockings from falling, and his shoes had a modest buckle across the top. The clothing did nothing to diminish how he filled up space, and Abigail knew that if _this_ Billy Bones had appeared at a London ball, there would have been a wave of gossip behind every fan and plenty of scheming on how to get into his bed. Risking being hanged for murder would be worth igniting London into a full scandal by reappearing on his arm when he looked like this. 

He was not of the same conviction, shifting nervously. “Do y’think?”

Abigail tilted her face up, wanting to reach her hands to take hold of his own and kiss them like she had that day in Charles Town. “Truth in all things, remember? Let me put on my boots and then we may go out into the day.” 

They parted after walking east together, Billy striding off and Abigail watching him leave with a sigh. He would need a better hat to look truly put together, but first both of them needed employment and a more permanent home. This was the first time– what a morning of firsts!– she had been left without supervision in public. She could do whatever she wished! She could walk off into the great wilderness of Pennsylvania Colony! She could skip down the street! She could scream and scream and scream and she would simply be the odd Mrs. Stevenson, not the shame of the Ashe family. Yes, she had realized her freedom on the ship, but there was something different when surrounded by all sorts of people, not just sailors. No one knew who she was. She was not George Stevenson’s wife yet to the citizens of Philadelphia. She took a deep breath before heading off towards the first dress shop. 

-

That afternoon, Abigail returned to their room, exhausted and perhaps a little hopeful. After two disheartening visits to dress shops, Sally Flannery had agreed to take Abigail on for small tasks until she could prove her worth. Then, emboldened by her success, Abigail had tried her hand at purchasing her own food from the market, tucking a fresh loaf of bread, two apples, and a hard wedge of cheese into a basket she had to acquire from a general goods store. Market Street had been crowded and noisy, full of life, tempting her to linger and overhear conversations in languages she could not comprehend but wanted to, some day. As a lady with a lady’s education, she spoke French prettily enough to surely impress anyone at Versailles if she had ever made the trip, but her French would do her little good unless she went north to Quebec City. She realized she did not know if Billy spoke anything other than English. He must, if he had been on a pirate crew. 

Abigail was making a list of everything one would need to establish a home, having dragged a chair to the table (two items which promptly became the beginning of her list), when Billy returned. She startled, a drop of ink splashing across the page and onto her skin, pushing back to stand and turn quickly towards him, one hand on the back of the chair. His head was down, the brim of his hat hiding his face briefly until he lifted it to the hook, facing away from her as he shed his coat. 

“Well?” Her attention was caught by the flexing of his back beneath his waistcoat. 

“You were…” Billy sighed, and her heart tightened before he turned to her and she saw the smile on his lips. “Absolutely correct. I begin the day after next.”

“Oh!” She let out a delighted laugh. “That’s wonderful!”

“And I may have found a house. It’s why I’ve been out all day.”

“Then–” Hurriedly, nervously, she picked up her new basket, uncovering the treasures inside. “You must be hungry. I bought some bread and cheese after I spoke with Mrs. Flannery. Here, have something to eat and you can tell me more.”

Part of the loaf was already gone from earlier, chunks of cheese picked off by her bare fingers once she’d realized, too late, that she had no knife. The food was the opposite of decadent, but that was how Abigail had felt, the fresh bread almost sweet with salty, sharp cheese ripped apart and eaten in bites. The apple had dripped juice down her chin, wiped away by the back of her hand as delicately as possible. Her father would have thought her gone feral, eating like that. The headmistress at school would have fainted at one of her girls eating without cutlery. That was a man’s style of eating, to take with their hands and eat directly of the fruit. But Abigail had no cutlery, and she had been hungry, and she had been alone. Billy, a man of a more practical nature, said nothing at the sight of what must look like mouse-nibbled food, taking out a knife from his waist to cut a piece of the cheese, putting it on a slice of bread before settling in a chair and asking, “Mrs. Flannery, then? Sound promising. Tell me of your day while I eat.”

The thing about Billy was he could be the most extraordinary listener, even if he was chewing as he followed the changes of her expression with those eyes. She could tell when he was pleased by her enthusiasm for her first visit to the market place, asking what price she paid for the food and telling her that he would have to show her how to haggle a bit with amusement in his voice. Abigail flinched at the kind admonishment as if it had been harsher; Edward would have used the opportunity to more thoroughly berate her for attempting to do what his father had people to do for them. _You spend a little time with pirates and imagine you’re the same as some fishwife right out the gate, hm?_

The humor left Billy’s face when he noticed the change in her demeanor. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, I– I’ll do better next time.” Suddenly she was sitting in the Ratliffe parlor again as if she’d never left, body stiff. Even in death, Edward could make her feel small and silly.

“Abigail.” His voice became that low, soft thing she wanted to curl up in. “I wasn’t meaning to be cruel. You’ll learn soon enough all the things you need to. Everyone has to start somewhere, yeah?”

Her smile was thin, trying to break through her irrational, embarrassing shame. “I’ll try not to be a fishwife.”

“I don’t know, it might be interesting to see you go after some poor chap with an iron pan in hand. You’re already a fierce thing.”

“And _you’ve_ apparently gotten me a home in which to practice my tyranny.”

“Indeed. I was telling the head clerk at Shippen’s about how we’d just moved here and he was helpful enough to recommend a house which had been recently vacated. We’d let it from the carpenter who built it, a Mr. Read. It’s close to the man’s own home, and he was amicable enough when I told him I had a new wife and nowhere to settle her. We can meet him tomorrow, move our things.”

“Is the house… furnished?” What a pair they’d make, rambling about in an empty home and sleeping on the floor. How much did furniture even cost? She had grown up taught that her domain was acquiring objects; it was her father or husband’s duty to pay for them without bothering her with details such as pounds and shillings. Henrietta Churchill, her friend from school, had a cousin named Anne whose family was barely hanging on by the grace of creditors, and Anne still had gowns made by thoughts of fashion and not economy. 

“Partially. There’s at least a bed and desk and table for eating, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I did wonder if we would need to make a nest on the floor with all our clothes.” It would have been like her time on Ned Lowe’s ship, waking up sore and immediately reminded of her circumstances with the press of uneven wood planks into her side. She typically stretched in her bed as a habit after waking; on _that_ ship, she had wept when she realized she had awakened to another day in captivity. But Ned Lowe was a dead man, and she was gloriously alive with the prospect of a new home and a new bed awaiting her tomorrow.

“You should know me well enough that I wouldn’t let it come to that.” His brow furrowed, and this time Abigail was struck by how _he_ must now feel as she had minutes before, words meant as a bit of a jest much sharper than intended.

“I do.” There was nothing more to say– they would, she realized, have to repeat these same steps, this unintentional wounding, many times over before they could recognize the nuances and not expect every blow to be a killing one. 

The moment between them stretched, snapped when he stood abruptly and cleared his throat. 

“Should we get a proper meal then? And I can show you where the house is.”

“Yes, I’d like that. And we can discuss how to outfit the place.”

-

She and Billy fell into a routine within the next two months, waking in the morning to dress and wash, eat breakfast and go to their respective employment from their little house on 8th Street. Abigail enjoyed being around the other women at Sally’s shop, though they could tell her past was a sight nicer than a seamstress married to a shipping clerk should have. Ruddy-cheeked Hannah Barrington liked to tease her, not unkindly, when Abigail would say something about London or society which had only been available for women of leisure and so-called good breeding.

So Abigail told her new friends something close to the truth– her father had enough money to acquire her a nice London education before they moved to the colonies, but lost his life by trusting the wrong men. By the time that had happened, she had already met George Stevenson and they had eloped. _Romantic_ , her audience thought. She could see it clearly on their faces. 

When the days shortened, Billy waited for her to walk home and accompanied her. The first time he’d done it, Abigail and Hannah had been walking out of the shop into a cold, damp night after needing to stay late to finish a project, giggling, before a large figure melted out of the shadows on the corner down the block. _Pirate_ , Abigail thought affectionately, even as Hannah cautiously paused her stride. Abigail turned back to her friend and smiled, an expression she was back to taking on more freely.

“Hannah, it’s just my husband, not some cutthroat. Come, meet him.” 

Hannah tilted her head towards Abigail’s, saying low, “I wondered why you’d give up being a fancy lady to marry him, Lizzie, but I think I understand it quite well now.”

Abigail made a dismissive noise in reply, her amusement tempered by the fact that Hannah didn’t know they shared a bed to sleep only. Let the woman make up her own wild ideas.

“Thought I’d walk you home now that it’s dark out. Was a bit worried when you weren’t already at home.” Billy stood there in his hat and suit and heavy coat, wonderfully intimidating with only a slice of his face visible until Abigail set her hand into his elbow and his free hand came to cover it while she made introductions as if Hannah did not feature in the many descriptions of her day. Before Hannah turned to go to her own husband and children, she looked at Abigail and Billy together, assessing them with the smug grin reserved for people who received a particularly illuminating piece of information before anyone else. Abigail made a shooing motion with her hand, laughing and promising to see Hannah in the morning. 

They walked together in silence down the street in silence for a moment, until Billy said, “You two seem to have become close.”

“She would have been very popular in London society, I think. Maybe it’s her reminding me of someone I would have been friends with back then that makes it easy to be friends now.”

There was hesitation in his next question. “Do you miss it? Being a London lady?”

“ _Mm_. Yes and no. If you had asked me two and a half years ago, I would have gone back in an instant because it was the only thing I had known, even with my father across an ocean. But that life is over for me now, and I am comfortable here. I’m… free, and I’m using that freedom to not dwell on the past.”

“I’m glad.” 

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“We’re building something here, Billy. A life. I've told you, I’m honored to do it with you. What has gotten you so morose?”

“I’m not particularly sure. The dark and the cold, I think. I’m not used to it.”

“My governess always had a special drink made when we were stuck inside for many winter days. It may not solve anything, but I remember it made me sleep better at night.”

When they returned home, Abigail knelt in front of the kitchen hearth, building up the cooking fire and realizing with a laugh that they had no cinnamon. Why should they? So instead she made a pot of tea with a healthy amount of honey and milk, placing the tea set on the table next to where Billy sat with the day’s paper by the parlor’s fireplace. 

“It’s missing, I realize, the cinnamon we had growing up, but…” She kept herself from fussing too much with her mug; they could not afford the same fine porcelain she had grown up taking her tea from, instead purchasing a tall Brown Betty pot and similarly simple mugs for everyday use. The thick glazed clay kept their drinks warm, and even without the spicy sweetness of the cinnamon, her first taste took her back to her nursery watching the snow falling outside. “Do you like it?”

“I’m trying to figure out how many bees sacrificed their work for this much honey in a single cup. My God, your governess had a heavy hand with the honey pot.”

“Oh, heavy enough,” she cheerfully replied. Better honey to sweeten her drink than sugar. “I’ll finish yours if you don’t want it.”

“Did I say I would be giving it up?” Abigail _hmm’_ d amusedly into her mug as a response, looking into the fire.

-

That night, Abigail woke feeling weighed down and hot, sweat gathered at the small of her back because she was being held down, she was back on Ned Lowe’s ship, she was back in Edward’s bed–

Billy murmured in his sleep, using the arm wrapped around her torso to pull her closer, and her building terror turned to something else, her breath catching as she realized he probably wasn’t even aware of what he was doing. It was the first time they had touched like this, body to body, and the past month’s progress of shoving her feelings deeply down was undone in a moment. Early in her marriage, she had tried to seduce Edward thinking it would bridge an already present gap between them, but it had been clumsily done and his reaction had made her wary of attempting it again. The ache between her legs was intolerable, and when she shifted her body to try and ease it, Billy stirred.

“Abby?” His voice was sleep-heavy, confused. He’d never called her _Abby_ before, only Lizzie in public, but it seemed appropriate he would do so, here in the dark. As if realizing where his arm was, he made to remove it from her torso, but Abigail placed her right hand on his own, eyes wide to stare at nothing and _hoping_. 

“Yes.” She sounded unfamiliar to herself with that tremulous whisper, her body a foreign land in the dark. But he did not reply, only made a low sound which she felt through his chest against her back, face pressing halfway onto the top of her braided head. This was the deepest he had ever slept around her; normally he woke at the sound of the church bells, or at her stirring herself out of dreams. Did he think he was still asleep, that she was still peacefully caught in her own dreams on the other side of the bed? The temptation to roll over in her sleep and kiss him awake was tempered by her wanting him to kiss her in the daylight, to know he wanted this, _them_ , without the excuse of darkness and a sleep-addled mind. When she finally fell asleep again, her dreams were fractured and restless, and she would only be able to remember how she had been on an empty ship at sea under a bright sun. 

The church bells struck seven, and Abigail opened her eyes alone in her false marriage bed, trying to figure out why she felt wretched. _Oh._ The midnight waking, Billy’s body against her own, dreams of pacing a ship’s deck in perfect silence like a ghost. 

Getting out of bed and splashing her face with warmed water by the small fire helped her feel less like a rusted automaton, her new thick dressing robe and woolen slippers insulating her body from the world before she went down to their kitchen. Sarah Read, their landlord’s wife, had been teaching Abigail how to cook alongside her own daughter Deborah, a bright girl of 13, and her younger daughters who were old enough to be trusted in the kitchen. Sarah’s offer had been generously extended when Abigail had told her, shyly over tea, that she had never been responsible for keeping up a house before. _Oh, you poor dear. I'll teach thee and let thee copy from my recipe book._

There were things Abigail had found more intuitive to cook than others, and still preferred to go to the baker for their bread instead of spending a frustrating day of tending to her dough only for it to never rise or fully bake in the center while burning on the outside. Billy had still eaten her flawed creations, soaking them in whatever soup or stew they were eating to make it palatable, saying he’d eaten worse before, and that every attempt was better than the last. He would join her in the kitchen as she made their meals, talking through the processing of cooking as if to help commit it to memory. Her commonplace book filled with the recipes Mrs. Read had taught her alongside observations of her day, and Billy helped with cutting vegetables or measuring ingredients– he’d _insisted_ , saying it was ridiculous that he shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the running of their own home until Abigail, raised with strict ideas of who did what, relented. The week of her courses, her cramps had left her visibly miserable, causing Billy to assert, with a sense of irony, “ _my worldly authority as a man_ ” and leave her in front of the fire with a cloth-wrapped hot brick while he finished their dinner. She’d been embarrassed that he even knew what menses _were_ until he’d wryly explained that he’d had an older sister who’d taken every opportunity to dramatically complain of her monthly pains and woes.

This was why she was not surprised to walk into the kitchen to see him in the midst of making their breakfast, a water kettle and pot for porridge hanging side by side over the fire. She still hesitated in the doorway at the sight of his shirtsleeves rolled up as he worked, wishing she’d put on all of her stays and petticoats as an armor against pressing herself against him and seeing if he remembered his dreams last night. 

“Good morning.”

“Abigail.”

She stepped into the room, pressing her fingers lightly to the work table. “You called me Abby last night.” _Might as well say it now, before I make myself a wreck all day_. 

“Did I?” The moment he remembered what he had thought to be a pleasant dream was clear; a charming blush spread over his cheeks. “Ah.”

“ _Ah_ , indeed.” Not looking at him but instead at the table’s surface, trying to be brave and forget Edward’s mocking sneer, she’d thought she should already be braver than succumbing to a ghost’s censure. “I did not mind. My friends called me Abby back in London, and I think I consider you a… a friend.”

_Liar._ _Tell him you wanted him to spread your legs and take you like a common wh–_

“I– Abby, I _don’t_.” His big hands spread flat onto the table, the tightening of the muscles in his forearm showing he rested most of his weight on his palms. 

“Don’t consider me… a friend?” She must be near her courses again, if that terse reply was enough to make her feel like crumpling. Despite their promises, she could go stay with Hannah, claim they’d had a massive row, look after that brood of children and hide herself away from the embarrassment that already cut her more deeply than anything Edward had ever said to her. 

“That’s not–” Billy sighed sharply, flexed his fingers, _fuck_ coming out in a harsh whisper she was probably not supposed to hear. Abigail looked her fill at his hands, as if this would be the last time she would have the luxury to observe him like this. “I think of you as my wife, Abby. Which you are.”

“We aren’t married.” And now they couldn’t be married in Philadelphia, or they would have to go about it very carefully. They went to services at Christ Church so as to not be considered entirely odd, sitting in the back each Sunday and seeing glimpses of Pennsylvania’s attorney-general Andrew Hamilton in his reserved pew at the front, along with the other notable Anglican politicians and tradesmen. Abigail had grown up a proper churchgoer, but the comfort her faith had provided her as a child melted away after Charles Town. The sermons felt hypocritical and on several Sundays during her time with the Ashford’s, had been pointedly about her situation without naming her directly. 

“Do you really think I need a priest to make true what we both know? Shall we go find a priest today and take care of that small thing, if it will make you feel better?”

“It is _no small thing_ , Billy! That is binding us together in the eyes of the law! That is _permanent_.”

“I thought this was already permanent.” He came around to her side of the table, and Abigail understood how men could surrender upon the mere sight of him like this, all intensity and purpose. “Do you wish to break our agreement so soon, Abigail? I thought you didn’t wish me to treat you like a husband would a wife.”

“You do, though. You do better than many husbands.” What kind of husband, with a woman to make his meals and darn his stockings, would willingly take on those tasks himself? God above, why did she still feel like she was going to break into tears as she said that, taking a gasping wet breath when he brushed a loose lock of hair up behind her ear, finger lingering to trace down the back of her bare neck. Thankfully she had sanded the surface of the table just a few days ago, so no splinters pressed into her gripping fingers as they swam before her gaze.

“Don’t play a fool, Abby. You know full well what husbandly duties I mean.” 

“I do.” He stepped closer to her, his heat wrapping around her and blocking the cool air from her neck. This was worse than waking with him pressed close to her back; she _trembled_ while he felt as sturdy as the brick which made up their hearth. 

His next words were hot against her ear, the hand now next to her extending a thumb to brush against her white-knuckled little finger. “Yes or no.”

“ _Yes_.” 

“Thank _fucking God_.” What she'd thought was composure left his body in the space of a relieved sigh as he lowered his lips to her pulse, curving over her. He did not move for the length of a long breath, just pressed down. Abigail shifted her weight to her left hand, lifting the right and placing it softly against his cheek and jaw, holding him there a moment more before he stood up and turned her to gather her to his chest. That was when she started to cry, and Billy hugged her tighter. “I think I frightened you. I'm sorry if I did.”

“No, you–” She was making a mess of his clean shirt, but she could barely stop the tears to speak. “I’m simply very happy you feel the same, which seems ridiculous, given the way I’m going about showing it.”

He pulled back and wiped her tears gently with the pads of his thumbs, kissing her forehead and slowly down her face as if making a map of all the things which made up her features: the slightly uneven brows, the cheeks which had a faint smattering of freckles, on and on, down to her lips. Abigail tasted her own tears, and smiled, using her hands to try and conduct her own inventory of his body as they kissed with lazy indulgence. The atmosphere had been so charged before this that she, at least, appreciated the time to bring her pulse and anxiety down from a flat out gallop. The snap of a log in the hearth brought her fully back to where they were, even as Billy’s mouth trailed down to her neck again, one of his hands working the knot of her dressing gown with the competence of, well, a sailor. 

“The food–”

“Far enough away to keep warm and not burn.” Billy barely lifted his mouth from her skin to speak, flicking open the dressing gown in an impatient motion, like he’d been wanting to do this for weeks. “Now, _wife_ , I’m going to need you to hold on to that table behind you along with the hem of this chemise.” She barely had time to follow the instruction, taking up the hem that he’d pressed into her hands, before he brought his open mouth down her body over the thin fabric in a single fluid motion, his teeth and hot breath adding a scraping pleasure she didn’t know whether to press into or away from. Forget the food; _she_ was the one burning right now. Only the tops of her thighs were bare, which he did not spare from his attentions as she sucked in shaking, anticipatory breaths. He moved as if to finally put his mouth on her cunt, but paused and looked up at her; there were no hauntings or guilt in that gaze, only a predatory hunger. Is this what he had looked like before boarding a ship, loading up his guns and checking his sharpened cutlass?

“This will have to do before tonight, but–” A bite and a kiss to her stomach, the pressure of his hand on her stocking-covered calf to bring it, without resistance, over his shoulder. “–you should know what I consider a husbandly duty, yeah?”

_Pirate,_ Abigail thought weakly, nodding. 

And oh, he did his duty, fingering her, nipping and licking and sucking until she couldn’t look at him any more out of embarrassment, until all she could do was hold the table to keep herself standing and tilt her closed eyes to the ceiling. She’d forgotten the pleasure in this act, how it made her feel close to a feral beast with desire, and Billy had the hands of a man who _worked_ , who tied knots and shot guns and killed men and now those same killing fingers stroked inside her with a steady rhythm that made her–

Her body jerked at her orgasm, a rough exclamation echoing in the quiet of the kitchen. Billy slowly slid his fingers out of her clenching cunt, licking a line of sweat from her electrified skin before trailing his wet fingers across that same line, seemingly unaffected by the woman trying to catch her breath above him, the muscle jumping beneath his light touch. When he didn’t speak, she made her hands unclench from their death grip on the table, blood painfully rushing back into the digits, and looked down, unsurprised to find him looking up at her, surprised to find him as visibly shaken as she felt. She slid her leg off his shoulder, leaving a sweat-soaked spot on the back of his shirt, not knowing what to say. Two animals, startled by the other's presence. 

The bell tower struck the three quarters of the hour. When the sound faded, Billy finally stood, took her face in his hands and gently kissed her before stepping away, walking back to the hearth to serve them tea and porridge. Abigail licked her lips, tasting herself.

“Tonight, if you’ll have me.” The damned man sounded almost calm.

Abigail slowly turned to face him, her skin protesting even the touch of her chemise, flexing her numb fingers before pulling her tea mug towards herself, not looking away from his exertion reddened face. “I’ll always have you.”

_Always_ . A word which promised _forever_ , an oath before God which she had purposefully spit upon before. This time, she’d mean it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL.
> 
> (misc. historian notes: andrew hamilton is a real christ church attendee with a false name(!) coincidentally similar to other hamiltons we may be familiar with; also real historical figures are the quaker couple mr. and mrs. read and their daughter deborah, who at this point in time is only a few years from meeting her future common-law husband benjamin franklin. if john read was a landlord, i can't confirm from home, but he was a commercial carpenter)


	7. to mend what i got

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from the oh hellos' "theseus"
> 
> _like theseus’s ship, we’ll fix the busted bits  
>  ‘til it’s both nothing like and everything  
> it’s always been_

Hannah smirked at Abigail when she came into the shop, still dazed by what had happened not an hour earlier at her kitchen table; her friend took the chance to announce to the other women, “I’ve met our Lizzie’s Mr. Stevenson.”

Sally and Mrs. Trumbull, a favorite customer who came to Sally’s as part of her socializing rounds, both burst into excited exclamations; Abigail almost didn’t recognize the Billy that Hannah described as she removed her pattens. She realized she still saw him partly as the pirate who wore no waistcoat and had a gentle manner despite his cruel lifestyle, not the brooding giant of a shipping clerk– how anyone believed he was naturally inclined towards sitting at a desk was beyond her– in a plain suit and coat who waited in the cold for his wife so she would not have to walk home alone in the evenings. His childhood had given him a polish that shone among other pirates, and his piracy a darkness which made him unable to truly connect with the men around him. But that was not Abigail’s problem to fix for him. She could not. She didn't know how.

“–but the  _ look _ in his eyes when he gazed down at our Lizzie when she wasn’t noticing, well, she’s certainly a lucky woman, hm?”

Abigail turned from the hooks they all hung their pattens from, certain all of them would be able to see her own wetness still on her lips. She and Billy had continued on with their morning routine as normal after he’d dished up her breakfast. The only deviation had been him kissing her hair before she put on her hat to leave the house, smiling as he’d pressed his own hat tight to his head and headed off. She could have sworn she’d heard him whistling one his rigging songs as he went.  _ Fucking infuriating man _ .

When a chorus of gasps and laughter sounded from the counter, she realized her mistake, blushing furiously moreso at the cursing aloud than anything else. “I’m sorry, I didn’t–”

“Oh, I would place good money on him being... infuriating,” Sally choked out before giving a full-bellied laugh. 

“Come now,” soothed Mrs. Trumbull from her stool by the ribbons, “You’ve not said much about him other than how you’ve met, but he can’t be such a silent beast as Hannah is exaggerating him to be.”

“He isn’t. He’s… charming, in his way. Conscientious of my welfare before his own. When we eloped, we got on his ship and he wouldn’t even sleep with me in the bed… or do anything else in the bed. We had to tell the captain we were already wed so we could travel together in one room. He knows I have a brain in my head unlike most of the men my father wished me to marry. You know how it is.” 

_ I should have damned him to hell when he confessed the worst of his sins to make sure I would still want him, and I did still want him. Does this make me a horrible woman abandoning her values, for looking forward to sharing a bed tonight? Is it awful to be falling in love with him? Is it awful to not know how to face what comes on the other side of knowing you’re in love? _ She could not ask these questions, not without exposing the truth, and there was a sadness in her secret-keeping.

The other women nodded in agreement with her spoken words, having shared with Abigail their own wisdom on marriage, which usually amounted to, _You are most likely right_ _in any situation_. They teased each other, but they meant well. Sally and Mrs. Trumbull were both over a decade older than Abigail and Hannah, and Abigail felt with a pang how much she’d missed having other women around to rely on these past two years. Miranda would have liked them and the other women who drifted through to say hello on their daily rounds of errands and visits, fit right in with her sharp wit and strong opinions on everything from politics to fashions. 

Abigail gave a little laugh when no one replied, hoping to seem less preoccupied than she was. “How easy it is to make a woman fall in love, isn’t it.” 

“Doesn’t sound too easy to me, Lizzie,” Sally said, looking thoughtful. “Plenty of chances for him to be a right bastard by now. Is that what’s got you so out of sorts this morning?”

“I’m not out of sorts.”

“Hm, ‘course you’re not.” But Sally Flannery had never gotten a secret by prying too hard, and simply changed the subject. “You still wanted to learn how to knit? I’ve some new yarn from Mr. Goldschmidt with me.”

“Yes, I’d like that.” And she found it difficult to focus on her troubles when faced with the yarn and needles, laughing over her end product of a small, uneven square which she had worked on over the course of the day.

“I’d say it’s an offering for the wee folk, but I imagine they’d take more offense than comfort out of it,” Abigail said as she unraveled the yarn and rolled it into a ball for Sally to put into her bag. “Thank you for teaching me today. I suppose it’s time I buy my own needles and yarn and inflict my poor skills onto a scarf.”

“There’s a sewing and knitting circle I’m part of, if you’d want to join us next week. Good women, the lot of them.” 

“Oh! I’d be honored.”

“Pleased to hear it, dear. Now, get yourself out of my store.” Sally flicked her hands in Abigail’s direction, not unkindly.

Abigail got home before Billy, shaking rain off her cloak and stirring the fires. She enjoyed tending them, the immediate satisfaction of wood catching alight and warming her hands after the lingering chill of the rain-soaked city. Leaving the kitchen fire to get hot, she went upstairs to change out of her damp dress and petticoats, leaving her stays on underneath her dressing gown. They had a small mirror in their bedroom, the only one in the house. Abigail peered into it and noticed with dismay the short pieces of her hair were frizzing upwards around her face; she slicked them down with her palms and hoped that would solve the problem before hurrying back downstairs and making herself tea. She didn’t sit down to drink it, only paced nervously through the house, taking occasional sips, thinking. The rain started to fall harder, the light coming weaker through the windows.

Billy came in the door, dripping as if he’d emerged from the river instead of the street. Abigail froze in the entrance to the parlor, hands wrapped around her mug as she stared at him taking off his hat and coat, stopping before he draped the coat over his arm to presumably hang in the warm kitchen to dry because he noticed her. 

“Hullo.” He slowly put the coat on the hook. Rainwater dripped onto the already damp floor. 

“Hello.” She twisted the mug around nervously in her hands. “Do you want some tea? This isn’t still hot but I can put the kettle back on…”

“You think I want tea to warm me up?”

Abigail matched the upward turn of his lips, looking down at her hands. “It’s the one thing I know how to make well, if you’ll remember.” 

“Abby.” He stepped up to her, tilting up her chin with a chilled hand. “That was a jest.”

“I knew that. I simply–” She covered his wrist with her free hand, wondering if the heat of her skin burned him, unable to look into his eyes and expose herself so soon. Steam did not erupt where they touched, but his fingers did tighten on her face.

“I have something for you,” he murmured, gently into the quiet between them. “Close your eyes.” His clothes rustled, whatever he carried kept safely from the damp. Abigail sniffed, eyes snapping open to look at the small unrolled package beneath her nose and then up to Billy’s face. Two cinnamon sticks lay against linen, the twine used to bind it dangling off the sides of his hand. 

“For your tea.” Billy smiled as he usually did– like the breath of warm wind on an early spring day. His contentment expressed itself so subtly that it was no wonder Abigail could not recognize him as Hannah had earlier described, herself living through the silence and discovering the language within it. His time on Skeleton Island had been spent letting the fire of his blinding animosity towards Flint hollow him out. This was what was on the other side of the war, Abigail thought: buying precious sticks of cinnamon on a rainy day to bring home. 

“Thank you. It smells wonderful, truly.” She understood with startling clarity that she wasn’t in the process of falling in love; she had already landed squarely on her bottom and was finally looking back up at the sky. He was not an unbroken man, nor a good one, but he was hers and therefore wonderful, and he brought her spices. Such was what the great unknown of their future would be built of, not so terrifying as she had dreamt. She went to touch the cinnamon as if disbelieving it was real and paused, instead looking up at Billy and using both of her hands to pull his face down to hers. The cool dampness of winter rain gave way to the heat that had been trapped beneath his hat; her fingers felt the light sweat which had gathered there in the moment before they kissed. His free hand came to rest on the small of her back, and she arched towards him, wanting.

When they parted, Abigail felt bright; it was the only way to describe the feeling, her body upset at being contained by such an inconsequential mortal thing as skin. 

“Should we–” 

“– _ Yes _ –”

She turned, running to their bedroom with her dressing gown lifted in her hand, her smile overtaking her face as she heard his heavier steps behind. When she faced Billy again, untying her dressing gown, she saw him place the small cinnamon bundle gently next to her mug on their mirror table before he came to her, kissing her again, lifting her against him, and this time she was not struck still; she participated fully, undoing the ribbon which tied back his hair, burying her hands in the dark golden strands, the loosened gown giving her legs the mobility to wrap around his waist. 

When Abigail had first imagined what the marriage bed entailed, she’d hoped for something perfect, if lacking in detail– freshly bathed and in a beautiful dressing gown and nothing else existing except the cocooning warm darkness with a faceless husband. This was far from that distant bedroom– they were both damp and chilled, the rain pattering insistently on the roof, Abigail kissing his lips and cheek and chin, Billy accidentally dropping her to the mattress instead of laying her down.  She laughed at his shock, squeezing her fingers on his forearm where it braced next to her. “All in one piece, dear.”

“All right,” he breathed before lowering his face to hers, slower this time, his free hand coming to the front of her stays to unknot them as Abigail blindly unbuttoned his waistcoat. It was awkward and it was perfect to be undressed like this, having to push up hips and arms to remove her dressing gown and stays and chemise, watching him undress standing up and fumbling with the buttons on the placket of his breeches in the dim grey light. 

When he joined her on the bed, they did not waste time exploring the new landscapes of each other’s bodies; that was for later, after this immediate pleasure. Abigail was less hindered by shock and shame as she had been that morning, instead taking what she wanted with rolls of her hips against his, using a hand to guide him into her when his fingers slid out, leaving her aching.

“Is this–?” She asked, suddenly shy, as if he had not had his mouth upon her barely twelve hours before. In any situation she would have laughed at the image, her hand on his cock hovering above her quim, asking if it was  _ all right _ for her to finally join them in what her governess would have termed an unforgivable sin outside of a church marriage.

A muscle in Billy’s neck jumped as he kept himself above her, sucking in a deep breath. He looked in pain. “Abby, please.” 

“All right,” she said, quietly, not out of shyness any more but in the off-handed manner of someone speaking while occupied. Which, fairly, she was; and  _ it _ ,  _ him _ , was more than okay once they joined, Abigail already growing hot all over even when Billy rolled to his back so she straddled him, exposed to the chill air. When they had first met she felt so small next to him, but in their bed she felt his equal, even as the broad span of his arm curled around her back so he could sit up. The change in angle was a lightning strike to her core, Abigail curling her head to Billy’s shoulder with mouth open, panting. 

Biting his shoulder was not a conscious thing; it was instinct driven by predatory desire, to sink her teeth into the curve of muscle where a long-healed scar marred his now pale skin, to put her tongue to his skin and taste his sweat. She rocked her hips, seeking her orgasm, pressing his head to her own shoulder with the slide of her hand the back of his head so she grasped the hair at his crown. They wrapped around each other, filling the room with the sound of heavy breaths and sticky skin, the bed ropes creaking. 

Afterwards, as Abigail lay on her back, Billy got out of the bed to dip a cloth in water, cleaning between her legs as she turned her head to look away, not seeing but feeling his soft kiss on the inside of her knee. She felt horrifically exposed once she was reduced again to simply a satiated woman in a body, not some tightly bound bit of starstuff, but she let him do it. The cloth was abandoned to the floor after he’d also cleaned himself, and a soft blanket was settled over both of them when he lay beside her. Abigail reached out her hand, finding his own by feel and lacing their fingers. 

“Well,” she said, a maniacal giggle building at the absolute absurdity of the situation, them lying side by side like chaste bedfellows despite their nudity after all the time she had spent thinking about this today; he did not join her, but let her laugh, bringing their joined hands to his lips. She could feel the smile. 

“Was I so bad?” His voice was low, meant only for her in the safety of their bed.

“No, I– it’s embarrassing.”

“Should I put on clothes for this, then,” he asked, wryly. 

Abigail turned her face towards him and furrowed her brow for a second before studying the ceiling again. “No. I dreamt of you sometimes before, that’s all.” At his silence, she continued. “I dreamt, I still dream, of everything that happened. Not as often. Less when sleeping in the same bed as you. Which is to say, about…  _ this _ –” She squeezed his hand. “–I might be afraid to wake up.”

“It felt very real to me.” 

“Me too. Very much. I’m glad.” She kissed his hand, then. “Thank you again for the cinnamon.”

“Sometimes we took spice ships and used part of the prize ourselves, and the cooks of Nassau were generous when they used them too. We should not go entirely without.”

“Do you miss it then? Nassau.” Maybe she did not want to hear this answer, but he had asked her if she’d missed London only yesterday.

“Some days. It was certainly easier before… before we tried to take it back.”

“When we met, you told me about that time, the war. You did not seem enthused about your survival.”

“I wasn’t. My br– the men, we talked about growing old, taking some great prize money with us and walking away, but I always expected to die on a ship’s deck somehow. And when I was alone on that island, I thought I was going to die there, me and that Spanish gold rotting in the jungle. I was going to tell Flint about it in Hell. But I was rescued, without a place to go. I told you I helped because it was something I could finally fix, but I was also being selfish. It was something to  _ do _ . And now I– I have a future where I don’t expect to die at the end of a noose or sword.” While he spoke he pulled her close to him, so that she curled against his side, his hand stroking her hair. “ _ Hm _ . That’s not true. Silver will find me one day. But I have you.”

She liked the sound of his voice with her ear against his chest. She did not like to hear him accept death like that. “He won’t. He can’t. He probably thinks you’re dead.”

“I’ve come back from the dead before. And I was going to make him king. That’s a hard fall.”

“Clerks don’t make anyone king.”

“No. We sit at our desks and go home to our wives.”

“Their very happy wives.” She pressed herself flush against him, finger absentmindedly tracing a scar.

At that he laughed, not entirely convincingly, rolling to his side to cradle her face, kissing her forehead before pulling back and saying, “There’s only one wife I concern myself with.”

Abigail did not interrogate him on his lingering mood, having found he was very good at avoiding the subject entirely, instead kissing him softly. She had meant it, those months ago, when she told him she would not take on his guilt, but she wanted to coax him back now from Nassau to her. It was her fault, to bring up the town, to make him think of Flint. The captain was the untouchable, unbreachable gulf between them, a man whom neither brought up in more than a passing reference, and only if unavoidable. They could argue politics viciously and wake up the next morning as if no ill words had passed between them, but Abigail knew that one day, eventually, Flint would have to be reckoned with. 

_ Not today, Abigail. There, feel Billy ready to take you again. Let him. Forget again, for a small while. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i need to address audrey underhill. next chapter!
> 
> thank you everyone for reading what was supposed to be a little oneshot and has since, uh, become something not little as i continue my black sails rewatch. i can only hope i'm doing the characters justice.


	8. wrest and wrecked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "a war story is a black space. on the one side is before and on the other side is after, and what is inside belongs only to the dead." -catherynne m. valente, _deathless_

Jesus Christ had died and been resurrected only once. He himself had done so twice. 

No one was going to found a religion based on the sinner Billy Bones, though. He believed in God inasmuch as he knew he would be going to Hell when the myth of Long John Silver finally came to darken his doorway, and Satan would take the form of James Flint. 

His life for a long time after his rescue had felt like playacting at normalcy, waiting to awake one morning back on the cold sand of Skeleton Island’s beach. His temptation to drown himself in the bottle had been thwarted by Captain Sharpwaite, by Abigail needing him– God, the power in being _needed_. Every morning he woke with her next to him in their bed– that itself a sign he was biding time until his true fate. 

Abigail, whom he’d first met over a table in the mess, with her kind little smile; that smile had terrified him, being so close to the smiles he remembered from his other life. She had reminded him that he had been in the midst of his first infatuation– Molly, the daughter of his parent’s friends– when he had been impressed, and had thus missed the gentle introduction to the mysteries of proper women. Instead, he had learned most men paid for their needs to be met, and only a few had a wife or lover to welcome them home. It was hard not to notice a woman on board– Anne Bonny remaining, as always in her way, the only exception in his experience– and Abigail had barely been a woman then, which made him feel a particular kind of guilt for blushing at her regard. He had felt ages older than her, even though they had been born only about a decade apart. At sixteen he had been impressed and abused, made to labor with a body still deciding how to grow, and she had been a lady who had never been without a servant or companion in her life. There was no punishment for looking down at her and Mrs. Barlow from the rigging, though Flint had informed his crew at the all hands before sailing that Abigail Ashe was to be treated with as much respect as if she were his own daughter. The men had understood the implication, and while they did not censor themselves or try to be anything they were not, they kept their distance from Abigail and Mrs. Barlow like the two women were cursed pieces of eight. Very beautiful, and certainly best kept a distance from. 

Mrs. Barlow had been a curse, without a doubt. Without her and her death, Billy’s dissolving trust in Flint as captain could have held on a while longer; no town raids, no weeks in the doldrums, no shooting two men over water rations. He did not think of Abigail during that era of his life– he did not have time to. She could not coexist as the pretty, temporary thing at Flint’s table alongside the violence he had made of his life. It felt wrong to think of her while his brothers and he himself had been dying of hunger and thirst, even if she would never know that which sullied her in memory. Abigail Ashe had ultimately been the means to an end– his captain back, a bargaining chip with Vane, the survival of his crew. Billy would have been dead without her. For all she had inadvertently instigated the murder of so many others and the destruction of Charles Town, she had saved the lives of a pirate crew. When he had been alone on Skeleton Island, he’d dissected how he had come to be there, how he had misstepped in not cleaving Silver and Flint’s trust in two before they’d become a united front. 

(If he had been telling this story about someone other than himself, he would have said that Billy Bones became the very monster he had tried to defeat.)

He could not regret attempting to usurp the tyrant Captain Flint. He could not regret being king-maker, putting the skills his parents had taught him from an early age to good use. They had been a family of stories, of creating monsters and of destroying monsters. He would no longer be welcome in their home, if his parents and siblings still lived; Billy had tried to imagine it, walking through the door, holding out his palms for them and asking, _Can you see the blood on my hands? The cause I failed? My friend who did not choose me? Can I lay my head on your knee like I did once?_ All he could see in his mind’s eye was an empty house, thick with dust. 

Everything he had done, he had done for his brothers, and he’d cut Silver neatly out of his heart when he had been handed over to the formerly enslaved men of the Underhill estate for them to take their pound of flesh. He would have had more respect for the man if he’d just shot him at the tunnel entrance. Billy had crawled his way to the goddamn English governor’s custody and saw a way to get what he had wanted by using Madi as bait. That was what had signed his death warrant. Not now, though. Sometime in the future, if Silver found out he had survived the fall. It had been a sweet moment to agree with Silver again, before the end, on the fact of the necessity of Flint’s death, even on opposite sides of a ship deck and a war.

Abigail shifted in her sleep on the other side of the bed; if she had still been in Nassau when he’d been making his myth, if she held the same sympathies for slaves which her life on the plantation had nurtured in her, she’d have handed him over to the Underhill men herself. The papers ran advertisements selling men and women and children now that the colony of Pennsylvania allowed it, and he could always tell when she read them. It upset her, the paper crushed under her grip, and she had once made a pointed comment about Billy’s own thoughts on the institution when discussing a column dedicated to a suppressed slave revolt in the southern colonies. She had not yelled, just used the contempt her class wielded in the sneer of their lips. It had been a stunning display of repression, that expression. But if she would not yell, he would not. 

_The men who perpetuate this system will be dragged to hell, no matter how advantageous it is in their time on this earth. I hope you know that._

It was one of the only times she ever directly addressed his past and his sins, and he wished he’d never told her any of it. He’d wished he’d lied about his complicity, but he’d always had a streak of honesty which betrayed him. For whatever he’d done, he’d done it openly, his motives clear to himself, at least. Billy knew the cost of trying to upend an entire system, and he did not wish to have one destroy him again. He could not survive it. So he was a coward, but he was also alive, a state of affairs he now selfishly had reason to cling to. 

(Long John Silver, in an English tavern, missing his wife across the ocean, says to a table of land-bound sailors as carefully as one sows a field with salt: “Billy Bones was a monster, a betrayer in the dark. He would perpetuate the horror of a war to get his revenge.”)

There was one lie he told Abigail by the simple act of omission– Aubrey Underhill, her little body thrown by his men into an unmarked grave beside her mother. But she’d had to die, or else he and his men would have been unable to conquer the estate for the existence of a living martyr. One girl, who would have grown up to hate pirates anyway. A small cost for a free island, which they did not achieve in the end. Abigail would never understand. 

Abigail, who could even now be pregnant. The women at the brothel had their own ways of staying free of pregnancy, but would a woman raised in the embrace of fine society know? But what did Billy know of fine society? This must be why he was thinking of Aubrey Underhill, the unwavering certainty that just as Silver would find him again, that little girl would someday rise out of the grave, or Abigail's womb, to punish him. 

He wanted Abigail again. He wanted to taste her, he wanted to sink into her, he wanted to erase the memories crawling, beast-like, up his body in the dark. He wanted to forget.

(Long John Silver, standing over Dufresnes’ cracked and broken skull, blood on his iron-hard face as surely as it pooled on the floor, said: “I’ve got a long fucking memory.” Billy watched this thing he created, an unbroken horse kicking down the walls of the stables and biting the grooms, unable to be contained again. )

Abigail tasted like sweat; he curled over her, large as he was, to press his lips to her skin. He did not think of pointing the rifle at his former brothers. He did not think of holding a knife to Madi’s throat. He did not think of a young girl’s body in a grave. He purposefully did not think of these things. He thought of his wife’s warm salt shoulder under him, the noise she made as she arched her body to his mouth, the pressure of her hand coming up, hitting awkwardly along his face until it curved hard and hot around his nape. Her nails curled into his hair, biting, to keep his mouth at the juncture of shoulder and neck, so he bit with teeth as her nails did. They did not talk this time as they fucked, him behind her, her leg over his hip with the help of his hand sliding down her body; Billy could tell Abigail still felt sleep lingering at the edges of her mind, as if this was another dream and she would break the spell if she opened her eyes. 

Afterwards, he held her and fell into his own dreams: chasing his wife through the streets of Nassau Town, his mother stepping into his path to preach the word of God who was also Flint perched on a tall building. And then a place that must have been his childhood home but on a ship, and there was a storm, but he was playing cards with his sister, but it was Mistress Max and not his true sister sitting next to Ben Gunn amongst the tangle of jungle plants, beating him at a game he had taught them both. In the morning he would not be able to explain exactly why he woke unmoored and upset, Abigail’s hand on his shoulder as she asked why he was shouting. Her hair fell in a glorious wave over her bruised and naked shoulder, and he stared at it in the light, unable to properly think. 

He wanted her because she was still better than him despite the knife in Ratliffe’s side, because she was good and beautiful and had one hundred pounds to help them live. He wanted her because she knew he had been a pirate and he did not have to lie to her about that part of himself. He wanted her because it was easier to live knowing there was someone to return to at the end of the day. He wanted her because her hair was beautiful and he had brushed his fingers over it and her soft skin while she slept these past months. He wanted her because she wanted him and she wanted to paint him. He wanted her because part of him knew it would horrify her father from his place in Hell. 

He wanted her because he had become a man without a cause, and he could not yet tell if he saw Abigail Ashe through the warmth of actual love or the clarity of having a purpose again. If it came to it, he would rather have her hold the knife to his throat than he himself sacrifice her, and that itself, the baring of his precious skin which he had betrayed so much to keep intact, seemed like the most consequential act of love as he knew it.

He wanted her because he was, in the end, a selfish man.

  
(Jack Rackham, captain, lecturing Mary Read, sailor, in his cabin over a cup of wine as Anne Bonny, pirate, sharpens a knife in the window seat: “Love is a story, and as I have said before, a story is art and art must _transcend_. The problem, of course, is you cannot write the act of love so neatly as you can a story. Notoriously unpredictable thing, love– how it happens or what it will drive you to do, but its use will get an audience to forgive many sins. Does it matter if whoever says they are in love is telling the truth? Only if the audience is convinced and spellbound.”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i started writing this fic, i was only at the end of season 2 of my rewatch and i'd forgotten the details of how much of a flaming asshole billy becomes in season 4– which, to be clear, makes narrative sense/he becomes flint's anger without the tempering presence of a miranda or silver. that's my emotional support wretched man failing under the weight of his own narrative turning to consume him, etc etc etc
> 
> also not to be totally 2012 but *dril voice* parenthetical asides and deathless quotes are back baby. it's good again. awoouu (wolf Howl)


End file.
